Attribution
Unknown

Reverse
Back turned with a depression for (missing) mirror.
Red label 'ART TREASURES EXHIBITION 1857. MUSEUM OF ART. The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, Proprietor' (1857 Manchester exhibition). White label: 'NATIONAL EXHIBITION OF WORKS OF ART. Leeds, 1868. Museum of Art. Ashmolean Museum. Proprietor'. Handwritten inscription on this label: '43'.
Handwritten ink inscription: ‘585 (Dr. Plot’s catalogue number. Date 1691. Liber Decani Aedis Christi)’.

Object Condition
Central hole in the upper part of the piece.
Superficial traces of burning on the tree to the left.
Missing: part of the back rim; part of tail of lower left terminal; part of the snout of the lower right corner terminal.

Provenance
Probably collection of John Tradescant by 1656; collection of Elias Ashmole; given by him to the Museum in 1683; Department of Western Art (WA1908.188); transferred to the Department of Antiquities in 2008.

Bibliography
'Liber Domini Decani Aedis Christi', The Book of the Dean of Christ Church, c. 1684-90 (Ashmolean Manuscript 8, fol. 33r, no. 585).
Liber Domini Vice-Chancellari, fols. 1-137, 'Catalogus Numismatum tum Antiquorum tum modern. A.A.A. quae Cl: Vir. Dns Elias Ashmole Musaeo suo Oxonij prima vice donavit. Anno 1683', The Book of the Vice-Chancellor, 1695 (Ashmolean Manuscript 11, fol. 232, no. 585).
'Liber Domini Aedis Christi Decani', The Book of the Dean of Christ Church, compiled by William Huddesford in 1756 (Ashmolean Manuscript 12, fol. 38r, no. 538).
P. B. Duncan, A Catalogue of the Ashmolean Museum, descriptive of the Zoological Specimens, Antiquities, Coins, and Miscellaneous Curiosities (Oxford, 1836), p.132, no. 325.
National Exhibition of Works of Art at Leeds, exhibition catalogue, Leeds, 1868, no. 719.
W. Maskell, Ivories Ancient and Mediaeval in the South Kensington Museum (London, 1872), p. 164.
R. Koechlin, 'Quelques ivoires gothiques français connus antérieurement au XIXe siècle', in Revue de l'Art Chrétien 41 (1911), pp. 281-292, fig. 12.
Catalogue of an Exhibition of Carvings in Ivory, exhibition catalogue, London, Burlington Fine Arts Club, 1923, no. 145, pl. XL.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, pp. 382, 412, 483; II, no. 990; III, pl. CLXXV.
M. Longhurst, English Ivories (London, 1926), pp. 53-4 and 109, no. 67, pl. 47.
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. 74, pl. 99.
D. A. Porter, Ivory Carvings in Later Medieval England 1200-1400 (unpublished PhD thesis, State University of New York at Binghamton, 1974), pp. 119-21, no. 57.
A. MacGregor, Tradescant’s Rarities: Essays on the foundation of the Ashmolean Museum, 1683; with a catalogue of the surviving early collections (Oxford, 1983), p. 283, no. 231, pl. 116.
A. MacGregor, Bone, Antler, Ivory and Horn. The Technology of Skeletal Materials since the Roman Period (London and Sydney, 1985), p. 99, fig. 55.
M. Hook and A. MacGregor, Medieval England: Archaeological and Decorative Art Collections in the Ashmolean Museum from Alfred the Great to Richard III (Oxford, 1997), p. 56, fig. 74.
A. MacGregor, Ashmolean Museum Oxford: Manuscript catalogues of the early museum collections 1683-1886, pt.1 (Oxford, 2000), p. 55, no. 585; p. 193, no. 538.
A. MacGregor and M. Hook, Ashmolean Museum Oxford: Manuscript Catalogues of the early Museum Collections, pt.II: The Vice Chancellor’s consolidated catalogue 1695 (Oxford, 2006), p. 84, no. 585.
J. Warren, Medieval and Renaissance Sculpture in the Ashmolean Museum, 3 vols (Oxford, 2014), Vol. 2: Sculptures in Stone, Clay, Ivory, Bone and Wood, no. 163.