Side 1: David and Bathsheba; messenger delivering a message from David to Bathsheba; David observing Bathsheba bathing from a window of his castle; three female attendants; architecture; columns.
Side 2: Legend of the King of Mercia or Judgement of Paris (Mercury present); the three goddesses Juno, Minerva and Venus stand before Paris seated on the ground (chalice, sword, arrow); Mercury brings Paris the golden apple; fountain; attendant with horse.
Crosshatched background; foliated border.
Koechlin 1924 and Longhurst 1929: Germany, early 16th century.
Williamson and Davies 2014: France, c. 1530-50.
Attribution
Unknown
Reverse
Carved on both sides.
Provenance
Collection of Prince Peter Soltykoff, Paris, until 1861; Soltykoff sale in Paris; purchased from Edward Rutter, Paris, in 1869.
Bibliography
National Exhibition of Works of Art, at Leeds, 1868: Official Catalogue, no. 658.
List of Objects in the Art Division, South Kensington, Acquired During the Year 1869, Arranged According to the Dates of Acquisition (London, [c. 1869]), p. 35.
W. Maskell, Ivories Ancient and Mediaeval in the South Kensington Museum (London, 1872), p. 127.
Munich exhibition, 1876, cat. no. 561.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, p. 430.
M. Longhurst, Catalogue of Carvings in Ivory, Victoria and Albert Museum, 2 vols (London, 1927 and 1929), II (1929), p. 86, pl. LXXIV.
C. Wainwright (ed. C. Gere), 'The making of the South Kensington Museum IV. Relationships with the trade: Webb and Bardini', Journal of the History of Collections, XIV, 2002, pp.63-78.
Ivoires du Musée du Louvre 1480-1850: une collection inédite, exhibition catalogue, Dieppe, Château-Musée de Dieppe, 2005, p. 48.
M. Westgarth, A Biographical Dictionary of Nineteenth Century Antique & Curiousity Dealers (special number of Regional Furniture, Vol. 23, 2009), p. 160.
P. Malgouyres, Ivoires de la Renaissance et des Temps Modernes. La Collection du Musée du Louvre (Paris, 2010), pp. 182-83.
J. Saviello, ‘Instrumente der Ordnung’, in P. Cordez and M. Kruger (eds), Werkzeuge und Instrumente (Berlin, 2012), pp. 58, 60, figs. 8, 10.
P. Williamson and G. Davies, Medieval Ivory Carvings 1200-1550 (London, 2014), no. 219.
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