Gothic Ivories Project | Double-sided panels, 1 register, 3 arches across (frise d'arcatures; plaquettes) (Panels 1 and 2, side 1)

Panel 1
Side 1: courting couples (meeting of lovers); youth chucking his lover under the chin; lady holding a dog; curtain.
Side 2: Couple embracing; lady holding a dog; horse.
Panel 2
Side 1: Youth with a hawk on his wrist; lady crowning her kneeling lover with a chaplet; offering of the heart; trees.
Side 2: hawking party; lady and youth hawking on horseback; youth with a hawk on his wrist; lady holding a whip.
Pointed trefoils in the spandrels; incised trefoils in the gables.

Attribution
Unknown

Hinges
Recesses along the sides but it is difficult to understand how the two panels would have been articulated.

Polychromy - Gilding
Traces of gilding on the border.

Reverse
Carved on both sides.

Object Condition
Vertical cracks in both panels.

Comments
Side 1 of both panels is softer and more worn, while side 2 is more angular and sharper.

Provenance
Collection of Count Girolamo Possenti di Fabriano: sale, Florence, 1 April 1880, lot 45. Collection of Placido de Sangro, Duke of Martina (b. 1829, d. 1891) (collection assembled in the 2nd half of the 19th century): given by his heirs to the city of Naples in 1911; housed at the Villa Floridiana since 1931.

Bibliography
A. O. Quintavalle, 'Medioevo ignorato. Avori gotici nelle pubbliche collezioni napoletane', in Crisopoli (1934), pp. 118-122, figs. 6-7.
Medioevo e produzione artistica di serie. Smalti di Limoges e avori gotici in Campania, ed. by P. Giusti, P. Leone de Castris, exhibition catalogue, Naples, Museo Duca di Martina, 1981, no. II.4.

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