Gothic Ivories Project | Writing tablets or box, 1 register, 1 arch across, bands of rosettes (plaquettes; tablettes à écrire; boite; décor de roses) (Front)

Wing, left
Hawking party; courting couple (meeting of lovers); lady and youth on horseback; youth with a hawk on his wrist; lady with a whip; trees.
Wing, right
Courting couple (meeting of lovers); couple making a wreath or chaplet by a flowery bush.
Border of dentils. Medallions enclosing quatrefoils with human faces in the spandrels (male and female).

Westwood 1876: French, 14th century.
Dalton 1909: French, 14th century.
Koechlin 1924: French, early 14th century.
Gaborit-Chopin 1998: Paris, circa 1300.
Robinson 2008: French, early 14th century.
Museum's opinion 2011: French (Paris), circa. 1300

Attribution
Unknown

Hinges
Long later hinge.

Reverse
Recessed to receive the wax, with a raised border. Some crosshatching.

Object Condition
Cracked in the right corner of the left wing.

Provenance
Collection of John Webb (b. 1776, d. 1869); collection of Felix Slade (b. 1788, d. 1868); British Museum, by donation, 1856.

Bibliography
J. O. Westwood, Fictile Ivories in the South Kensington Museum (London, 1876), no. 445 ('55.45).
O. M. Dalton, Catalogue of the Ivory Carvings of the Christian Era in the British Museum (London, 1909), no. 360, Pl. LXXXII.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, pp. 436, 437; II, nos. 1165 and 1166.
Art of the Courts of France and England from 1259-1328; L'Art et la cour: France et Angleterre 1259-1328, exhibition catalogue, Ottawa, Galerie nationale du Canada, 1972, no. 73, pl. 98.
L'art au temps des rois maudits: Philippe le Bel et ses fils (1285-1328), exhibition catalogue, Paris, Grand Palais, 1998, no. 100, p. 164.
J. Robinson, Masterpieces of Medieval Art (London, 2008), p. 202.

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