Attribution
Master of the Cologne Casket of saint Ursula, also known as Atelier aux bandeaux gemmés (Natanson 1951 and Gaborit-Chopin 1978)

Reverse
Back turned with a depression, but no bevelling and no recess at the top to receive the bayonet mount of another disc, suggesting it was not one of a pair (Williamson in Williamson and Davies 2014).

Object Condition
Later hole in the upper part.
Dry surface, chipped rim on the front to the left.

Comments
In all pieces attributed to this atelier, figures wear chaplets pierced with small holes, where gems must have been originally inserted.
No corner terminals seem to ever have been present.

Provenance
In the possession of John Webb (b. 1799, d. 1880), by 1862: purchased from him by the museum in 1867.

Bibliography
Catalogue of the Special Exhibition of Works of Art of the Mediaeval, Renaissance, and more recent periods on loan at the South Kensington Museum, June 1862..., revised edition, exhibition catalogue (London, 1862), no. 136.
Inventory of the Objects in the Art Division of the Museum at South Kensington, arranged according to the dates of their acquisition (London, 1868), I, p. 8.
W. Maskell, Ivories Ancient and Mediaeval in the South Kensington Museum (London, 1872), p. 85.
J. O. Westwood, Fictile Ivories in the South Kensington Museum (London, 1876), no. 881 (`73.334).
A. Maskell, Ivories (Connoisseurs Library), (London, 1905), pl. XLVIII.
R. Koechlin, Histoire de l'art depuis les premiers temps chrétiens jusqu'à nos jours, ed. by A. Michel, II (Paris, 1906), p. 492.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, pp. 376, 384, 385, 435; II, no. 1034; III, pl. CLXXVIII.
M. Longhurst, Catalogue of Carvings in Ivory, Victoria and Albert Museum, 2 vols (London, 1927 and 1929), II (1929), p. 46, pl. XLII.
J. Natanson, Gothic Ivories of the 13th and 14th Centuries (London, 1951), p. 37, fig. 45.
D. Gaborit-Chopin, Ivoires du Moyen Age (Freiburg, 1978), p. 209.
D. Gaborit-Chopin, Avori medievali - Museo Nazionale del Bargello (Florence, 1988), p. 65.
R. H. Randall, The Golden Age of Ivory: Gothic Ivory Carvings in North American Collections (New York, 1993), p. 124.
M. Camille, The Medieval Art of Love: Objects and Subjects of Desire (London, 1998), p. 102, fig. 86.
S. L. Smith, 'The Gothic Mirror and the Female Gaze', in Saints, Sinners, and Sisters. Gender and Northern Art in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, ed. by J. L. Carroll and A. G. Stewart (Aldershot, 2003), p. 86, fig. 4.7.
E. L'Estrange, 'Gazing at Gawain: Reconsidering Tournaments, Courtly Love, and the Lady Who Looks', in Medieval Feminist Forum 44, no. 2 (2008), pp. 74-96 (pp. 82, 93, fig. 3). Available at: http://ir.uiowa.edu/mff/vol44/iss2/11 (accessed 10-10-2012).
P. M. Carns, ‘Cutting a fine figure: costume on French Gothic Ivories’, in Medieval Clothing and Textiles, Vol. 5 (2009), pp. 55-91 (pp. 60, 88, fig. 4.2).
L. Lam, 'Les valves de miroir gothiques: sources littéraires et iconographie', in Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 74 (2011), pp. 297-310 (esp. pp. 308-309, fig. 6).
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. 568, in relation to no. 164.
P. Williamson and G. Davies, Medieval Ivory Carvings 1200-1550 (London, 2014), no. 193.