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Casket, with arches, quatrefoils, rosettes (coffret; frise d'arcatures; quatre-feuilles) (End, right)

Casket, with arches, quatrefoils, rosettes (coffret; frise d'arcatures; quatre-feuilles) (End, right)
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Body, front

Lid

End, left

Body, front

End, right

End, left

Lid

Body, back

Body, front

Interior

Body, back

Body, front

Lid

End, left

Subject
Secular. Courtly love. Romance.

Repository Institution
www.louvre.fr

To purchase an image
www.photo.rmn.fr


Paris, Musée du Louvre

MRR 77

Ivory;silver (modern fittings)

Height: 95mm (total); 88mm (side panels)
Width: 263mm
Depth: 140mm (depth of casket); 8mm (of side panels)

Romance of the Châtelaine de Vergi.
Lid
Register 1: Courting couple (meeting of lovers); the Châtelaine secretly meets the knight; dog. Châtelaine discussing with the knight. The knight rejects the advances made by the Duchess of Burgundy; bed. The Duchess tells the Duke of Burgundy that the knight has offended her.
Register 2: the Châtelaine trains her dog to be her messenger. The Châtelaine sends her dog to the knight; knight with a hawk on his wrist. The knight and the Châtelaine meet in her bedroom; the knight chucks the Châtelaine under the chin. The Duke of Burgundy threatens the knight, kneeling; sword.
Body, back
The knight, to exonerate himself, tells the Duke about his liaison with the Châtelaine and brings the duke of Burgundy through the forest. The duke observes the meeting of the two lovers, hidden behind a tree; the knight embraces the Châtelaine, her dog is at her feet. The duke tells the duchess about their idyll; bed. The Châtelaine in her castle receives an invitation to the Carnival ball organised by the Duchess.
End, left
Ladies dancing a carole; the Duchess compliments the Châtelaine on her skill at training dogs; two musicians blowing trumpets.
Body, front
The Châtelaine, seeing that her secret has been betrayed, dies of sorrow; bed; sword; servant. The knight, discovering the dead body of the Châtelaine, commits suicide by piercing his chest with a sword. The Duke, discovering the two corpses, removes the sword from the body of the knight and goes in search of the Duchess.
End, right
The Duke beheads the Duchess at the ball. The Duke kneels before a member of the clergy who places a cross on his shoulder: the Duke will become a Knight Templar.


Koechlin Number: 1301

Westwood 1876: France, 14th century.
Koechlin 1924: France, 1st half of the 14th century.
Gaborit-Chopin 2003 and Museum's opinion 2010: Paris, c. 1340-1350.


Attribution
Unknown

Reverse
Carved on all sides.

Object Condition
Ivory cracked, especially on the lid. Red staining.
Edges of the panels moulded so as to be assembled without the need for a wooden support.

Comments
Inscription in pencil: 'no. 61'. On bottom, labelled: 'N 1067', '506'.

Provenance
Pierre Révoil collection, Lyon (no. 75); acquired by the Museum in 1828.

Bibliography
M. de Laborde, Notice des émaux, bijoux et objets divers exposés dans les galeries du musée du Louvre (Paris, 1857), no. 905.
A. Sauzay, Musée de la Renaissance [Musée du Louvre]. Notice des ivoires (Paris, 1863), no. 74.
J. O. Westwood, Fictile Ivories in the South Kensington Museum (London, 1876), no. 692-695 ('58.246).
E. Molinier, Musée National du Louvre. Catalogue des ivoires (Paris, 1896), no. 61.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, pp. 509, 512, 513; II, no. 1301; III, pl. CCXXII-CCXXIII.
L. Grodecki, Ivoires français (Paris, 1947), p. 74.
M. Locey, 'La chastelaine de Vergy', in , in The Register of the Museum of Art, the University of Kansas, IV, 2, 1970, fig. pp. 6, 7 (with bibliography).
B. Schmolke-Hasselmann, 'La chastelaine de Vergi auf Pariser Elfenbeinkästchen des 14. Jahrhunderts. Zum Problem der Interpretation literarischer Texte anhand von Bildzeugnissen', in Romanisches Jahrbuch, XXVII, 1976, pp. 52-76.
L. Gross, 'La Chastelaine de Vergi carved in Ivory', in Viator, 10, 1979, note 7.
Les Fastes du Gothique: le siècle de Charles V, ed. by F. Baron, exhibition catalogue, Paris, Grand Palais, 1981, no. 128.
E. Sienaert, 'Reading a Story Carved in ivory: La Chastelaine de Vergy', in Oral Tradition and Literacy: Changing Visions of the World : Selected Conference Papers, University of Natal, Durban, July 1985, ed. by R. Whitaker and E. R. Sienaert (Durban, 1986), pp. 83ff (with bibliography).
Le Stanze di Artù, ed. by E. Castelnuovo, exhibition catalogue, Alessandria, Complesso conventuale di San Francesco, ex Ospedale militare, 1999-2000, p. 132.
P. M. Shoppe, Reading Romances. The Production and Reception of French Gothic Secular Ivory Caskets in the Context of Late Medieval Literary Practices (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, 2000), esp. pp. 75-118.
D. Gaborit-Chopin, Ivoires médiévaux, Ve-XVe siècle (Paris: Musée du Louvre, 2003), no. 175.
J. Lowden, Medieval and Later Ivories in the Courtauld Gallery (London, 2013), p. 94, in relation to no. 15.


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