Side 1: man at a pulpit addressing a child and five seated women.
Side 2: Fountain of Youth (?); meeting of lovers (courting couples); youth holding the hand of a lady (missing); couple on either side of a fountain; offering of a flower (gift of a flower).
Westwood 1876: Germany(?), 14th century.
Gatty 1883: probably Italy, 14th century.
London 1923: Italy, end of 14th century.
Liverpool Ivories 1954: North Italy, c. 1400.
Gibson 1994 and Museum's opinion 2010: France or Italy, early 15th century.
Attribution
Unknown
Reverse
Carved on both sides.
Object Condition
Missing: both edges with parts of the scenes (female figure missing on side 2); many teeth.
Provenance
Found in the ruins of the Benedictine nunnery of Saint Mary Magdalene, Ickleton (Cambridgeshire): presumably found when the north transept and eastern chapel were demolished in 1791, it was presented to a Mr Shepherd living in the neighbourhood (d. by 1803) and, by 1803, was owned by his son (see Archaeologia 1806). Joseph Mayer collection: given by Joseph Mayer to the town of Liverpool in 1867.
Bibliography
Archaeologia XV (1806), p. 405 and pl. xli.
W. Maskell, Ivories Ancient and Mediaeval in the South Kensington Museum (London, 1872), p. 174.
J. O. Westwood, Fictile Ivories in the South Kensington Museum (London, 1876), no. 898-9 (`73.349-350).
C. T. Gatty, Catalogue of Mediaeval and Later Antiquities contained in the Mayer Museum (Liverpool, 1883), no. 69.
Catalogue of an Exhibition of Carvings in Ivory, exhibition catalogue, London, Burlington Fine Arts Club, 1923, no. 149.
Liverpool Ivories: Special Exhibition, exhibition catalogue, London, British Museum, 1954, no. 44.
M. Gibson, The Liverpool Ivories: late antique and medieval ivory and bone carving in Liverpool Museum and the Walker Art Gallery (London, 1994), no. 43.
J. Warren, Medieval and Renaissance Sculpture in the Ashmolean Museum, 3 vols (Oxford, 2014), Vol. 2: Sculptures in Stone, Clay, Ivory, Bone and Wood, p. 526, in relation to no. 151.
P. Williamson and G. Davies, Medieval Ivory Carvings 1200-1550 (London, 2014), in relation to no. 213.
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