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Mirror case, frame of 7 lobes (valve de miroir) (Front)

Mirror case, frame of 7 lobes (valve de miroir) (Front)
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Front

Subject
Secular. Courtly love.

Repository Institution
thewalters.org

To purchase an image
thewalters.org


Baltimore, Walters Art Museum

Inv. 71.207

Ivory

Height: 78mm
Width: 77mm

Courting couples (meeting of lovers); winged God of Love in a tree throwing arrows at lovers.
Foliated corner terminals.

Ann Arbor 1975: French, 14th century.
Randall 1985 and Museum's opinion 2010: French, 3rd quarter of the 14th century.


Attribution
Unknown

Reverse
Smooth: does not seem to have been altered from a mirror case as was originally believed.

Object Condition
Plaque was cut square, trimming the sides. Burned and discoloured in the lower side.

Comments
Original use unknown: cover of a square box, ornament for a book cover or inset on some object. Liripipes hanging from the hoods and long sleeves argue for the 2nd half of the 14th century (Randall 1985).

Provenance
Bought by Henry Walters from Léon Gruel in Paris in 1925; Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.

Bibliography
Images of Love and Death in Renaissance and Late Medieval Art, exhibition catalogue, ed. by W. R. Levin, Ann Harbor, University of Michigan, Nov. 1975-Jan. 1976, pp. 108-109, no. 68, pl. VI.
R. H. Randall, Masterpieces of Ivory from the Walters Art Gallery (New York, 1985), no. 334.


Image

© Laila Zamuelis Gross Archive of Secular Ivories, 1985.
Laila Zamuelis Gross Archive of Secular Ivories. 1985.

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