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Casket (coffret) (Overview)

Casket (coffret) (Overview)
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Body, back

End, right

End, left

Body, front

Lid

Bottom

Overview

Body, front

Body, back

End, left

End, right

End, right

End, left

Body, front

Body, back

Lid

Subject
Secular. Arthurian Romance. Courtly love.

Repository Institution
www.britishmuseum.org

To purchase an image
www.bmimages.com


London, The British Museum

1856,0623.166 (Dalton 368)

Ivory;metal (later fittings)

Height: 80mm
Width: 210mm
Depth: 130mm

Lid
Attack on the Castle of Love; lady throwing a flower from the battlements; catapult throwing flowers; winged God of Love throwing arrows at knights. Tournament; men and women observing the jousting knights in armour from a balcony; youth with a hawk on his wrist; two heralds in trees blowing trumpets; horses; shields. Attack on the Castle of Love; knight in armour assaulting the castle; ladies throwing flowers from the battlements; knight climbing a ladder; knight in armour kneeling before a lady who holds a key.
Body, front
Aristotle teaching Alexander; Aristotle ridden by Phyllis, observed by Alexander. Fountain of Youth decorated with monster heads; old and young; cripples with crutches; couples bathing.
End, right
Tristan and Iseult conversing; Tristan with a hawk on his wrist; dog on Iseult's lap; king Mark in the tree; fountain reflecting king Mark's face. Capture of the unicorn; man spearing the unicorn; maiden holding a chaplet; trees.
Body, back
Gawain in armour fighting the lion. Lancelot crossing the sword bridge, with spears falling from the sky. Gawain on the perilous bed, watched by the lion; bed on wheels with bells; shield with a lion paw; spears falling from the sky. The three maidens at the Château Merveil.
End, left
Galahad receiving the keys to the Castle of the Maidens (Château Merveil); horse; armour.


Koechlin Number: 1283

Dalton 1909: French, 14th century.
Koechlin 1924: French, 1st half of 14th century.
Ottawa 1972: Paris, 1st quarter of the 14th century.
Baron 1981: Paris, 2nd quarter of the 14th century.
Robinson 2008: Paris, 1325-1350.
Delcourt 2009: Paris, 14th century.


Attribution
Unknown

Reverse
Carved on all sides.

Object Condition
Lid cracked and restored.

Provenance
Collection of S. W. Stevenson, Norwich (b. 1784, d. 1853), on or before 1850; collection of William Maskell (b. 1814, d. 1890), purchased in 1854 through Sothebys; British Museum, by purchase, 1856.

Bibliography
Archaeologia, XXXII (1850), p. 446.
T. Wright, Journal of the British Archaeological Association, 5 (1850), p. 267.
T. Wright, Essays on Archaeological Subjects, 2 (1858), p. 88.
The Burlington Magazine (1904), pp. 301-3 (illustration).
O. M. Dalton, Catalogue of the Ivory Carvings of the Christian Era in the British Museum (London, 1909), no. 368, pl. LXXXVI, LXXXIV, LXXXV.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, pp. 485, 489, 491, 497, 501, 504, 506; II, no. 1283.
R. H. Randall, Medieval Ivories in the Walters Art Gallery (Baltimore, 1969), in relation to no. 18.
Art of the Courts of France and England from 1259-1328; L'Art et la cour: France et Angleterre 1259-1328, exhibition catalogue, Ottawa, Galerie nationale du Canada, 1972, no. 83, pl. 109.
Les Fastes du Gothique: le siècle de Charles V, ed. by F. Baron, exhibition catalogue, Paris, Grand Palais, 1981, no. 127.
J. Walworth, 'Tristan in Medieval Art', in Tristan and Isolde: a Casebook, ed. by J. T. Grimberg (New York and London, 1995), pp. 278-299 (fig. 10).
J. Robinson, Masterpieces of Medieval Art (London, 2008), p. 216.
La Légende du roi Arthur, dir. by T. Delcourt, exhibition catalogue, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, 2009, p. 172.
P. Williamson and G. Davies, Medieval Ivory Carvings 1200-1550 (London, 2014), in relation to no. 227.


Image

Conway Library © Courtauld Institute of Art.

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