Palace of the God of Love.
Register 1: courting couples (meeting of lovers); youth chucking his lover under the chin; winged God of Love in a tree, crowning kneeling lovers with chaplets.
Register 2: couples holding hands, dancing; female musician playing a portable organ; trees.Medallions enclosing quatrefoils with protruding cones in the spandrels.
Corner terminals: four crouching monsters.
Westwood 1876: France, 14th century.
Koechlin 1924: France, 1st half of the 14th century.
Rouen 2000-2001: Paris, c. 1310-1330.
Gaborit-Chopin 2003 and Museum's opinion 2010: Paris, c. 1310-1330.
Attribution
Unknown
Polychromy - Gilding
Traces of gilding (modern, around circumference), and polychromy (blue).
Reverse
Back turned with a depression for (missing) mirror. Worn inscription on back, in cursive gothic script: 'Jehan'.
Modern inscription in pencil: 'no. 76', labels: 'no. 891', 'A. 60', 'N. 1055'.
Hole in upper part, with trace of oxidised metal hook.
Object Condition
Ivory cracked. Chip to the eye of the monster at top-right. Screw thread with notches.
Missing: muzzle of monster at bottom-left.
Provenance
Mentioned in Migieu and Boullemier in 1779. Pierre Révoil collection, no. 172; acquired in 1828.
Bibliography
Marquis de Migieu and C. Boullemier, Recueil des sceaux du Moyen Âge dits 'sceaux gothiques' (Paris, 1779), pl. III.
M. de Laborde, Notice des émaux, bijoux et objets divers exposés dans les galeries du musée du Louvre (Paris, 1857), no. 891.
A. Sauzay, Musée de la Renaissance [Musée du Louvre]. Notice des ivoires (Paris, 1863), no. 60.
J. O. Westwood, Fictile Ivories in the South Kensington Museum (London, 1876), no. 857 ('58.201).
L. Courajod, La Collection Révoil du musée du Louvre (Caen, 1886), no. 172.
E. Molinier, Musée National du Louvre. Catalogue des ivoires (Paris, 1896), no. 76.
R. Koechlin, 'Le dieu d'Amour et le château d'Amour sur les valves de boîtes à miroirs', in Gazette des Beaux-Arts, Nov. 1921, fig. 285.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, pp. 401, 403, 511; II, no. 1080; III, pl. CLXXIV.
M. Carrà, Gli avori in Occidente (Milan, 1966), pp. 128-129, fig. 59.
L'Art décoratif d'Europe occidentale, IXe-XVIe siècles, d'après les collections du musée du Louvre et de Cluny, exhibition catalogue, Leningrad and Moscow, 1980-1981, no. 9.
Les Fastes du Gothique: le siècle de Charles V, ed. by F. Baron, exhibition catalogue, Paris, Grand Palais, 1981, no. 125.
Images in Ivory. Precious Objects of the Gothic Age, ed. by Peter Barnet, exhibition catalogue, Detroit, The Detroit Institute of Arts, and Baltimore, The Walters Art Gallery, 1997, no. 56, pp. 228-229.
M. Camille, 'Images in Ivory: Gothic Toys and Devotional Dolls', in The Sculpture Journal, 2, 1998 p. 4.
L'art au temps des rois maudits: Philippe le Bel et ses fils (1285-1328), exhibition catalogue, Paris, Grand Palais, 1998, no. 99.
Miroirs. Jeux et reflets depuis l'Antiquité, exhibition catalogue, Rouen, Musée départemental des Antiquités, 2000-2001, no. 88, pp. 149-150.
D. Gaborit-Chopin, Ivoires médiévaux, Ve-XVe siècle (Paris: Musée du Louvre, 2003), no. 130.
P. Williamson and G. Davies, Medieval Ivory Carvings 1200-1550 (London, 2014), in relation to no. 202.
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