Couples on a covered balcony with lozenge pattern and three arches; courting couples (meeting of lovers); couple making a wreath; youth chucking his lover under the chin; two dogs.
Couple embracing; lady holding a dog; youth chucking his lover under the chin; lady crowning her kneeling lover with a chaplet.
Figures wearing chaplets pierced with small holes.
Pointed trefoils in the spandrels. Corner terminals: two monsters.
Westwood 1876 and Griggs 1904-1907: France, 14th century.
Koechlin 1924: France, 1st half of the 14th century.
Longhurst 1929: France, 1st half of the 14th century.
Williamson and Davies 2014: French (Paris) or possibly Lower Rhenish (Cologne), beginning of the 14th century.
Attribution
Master of the Cologne Casket of saint Ursula, also known as Atelier aux bandeaux gemmés (Gaborit-Chopin 1978)
Polychromy - Gilding
Trace of polychromy (monsters).
Reverse
Back turned with a depression for (missing) mirror.
Object Condition
Missing: upper right and lower left corner terminals; part of the tail of the upper left monster; part of the background to the left, between the two first figures on the balcony.
Two small holes in the upper part.
Three deep vertical cracks.
Comments
In all pieces attributed to this atelier, figures wear chaplets pierced with small holes, where gems must have been originally inserted.
Provenance
Collection of Louis Fould (b. 1794, d. 1858), Paris: his sale, Paris, 4 June 1860 and following days, lot 1697. In the possession of John Webb (b. 1799, d. 1880), London, by 1862: purchased from him by the Museum in 1867.
Bibliography
A. Chabouillet, Description des Antiquities et Objects d'Art composant le Cabinet de M. Louis Fould (Paris, 1861), no. 1697, repr. on p. 97.
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. 133.
Inventory of Art Objects acquired in the Year 1867. 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. 84.
J. O. Westwood, Fictile Ivories in the South Kensington Museum (London, 1876), no. 879 (`73.332).
W. Griggs, Portfolio of Ivories [London, 1904-1907], pt. XXVII.
A. Michel, L'histoire de l'art depuis les premiers temps chrétiens jusqu'à nos jours, 8 vols, 17 parts (Paris, 1905-1929), II, p. 494.
R. Koechlin, Histoire de l'art depuis les premiers temps chrétiens jusqu'à nos jours, ed. by A. Michel, II (Paris, 1906), p. 494.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, pp. 376, 381, 384, 401, 435, 481; II, no. 1018; pl. CLXXVIII.
M. Longhurst, Catalogue of Carvings in Ivory, Victoria and Albert Museum, 2 vols (London, 1927 and 1929), II (1929), p. 45, pl. XLIII.
D. Gaborit-Chopin, Ivoires du Moyen Age (Freiburg, 1978), p. 209.
D. Gaborit-Chopin, Avori medievali - Museo Nazionale del Bargello (Florence, 1988), p. 65.
B. Roy, ‘Archéologie de l’amour courtois; note sur les miroirs d’ivoire’, in Miroirs et jeux de miroirs dans la littérature médiévale, ed. by F. Pomel (Rennes, 2003), pp. 233-251 (p. 239, fig. 12).
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. 201.
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