Side 1: Bathsheba receives a letter from David; David, from a window of his palace, sees Bathsheba bathing; fountain; female attendant.
Side 2: Judgement of Paris (Dream of Paris); the three goddesses Venus, Juno and Minerva stand before Paris asleep; Mercury brings Paris the golden apple.
Putti holding spears and shields; cherubs; candelabra; dolphins.
Columns; crosshatched background; foliated decoration.
Westwood 1876: Germany, 16th century.
Longhurst 1929: Germany, beginning of the 16th century.
Williamson and Davies 2014: probably French or Netherlandish, c. 1520-30.
Attribution
Unknown
Reverse
Carved on both sides.
Object Condition
Chip in the upper left corner of the side with David and Bathsheba.
Provenance
Collection of Ralph Bernal, 93 Eaton Square, London (b. 1783, d. 1854): his sale, Christie & Manson, London, 21 March 1855, lot 1618; bought by the Museum at this sale.
Bibliography
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. 66.
W. Maskell, Ivories Ancient and Mediaeval in the South Kensington Museum (London, 1872), p. 5.
J. O. Westwood, Fictile Ivories in the South Kensington Museum (London, 1876), no. 901 ('65.118.119).
J. Alois Kuhn, Katalog für die Ausstellung der Werke älterer Meister (Munich, [1876]), pt II: Katalog der Kunst und Kunstindustrie-Ausstellung alter und neuer deutscher Meister, no. 568.
F. Winter, Die Kämmer aller Zeiten (1906), pl. 41, no. 121.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, p. 430.
M. Longhurst, Catalogue of Carvings in Ivory, Victoria and Albert Museum, 2 vols (London, 1927 and 1929), II (1929), p. 87.
A Pageant of Baths, exhibition catalogue, Bath, Holburne of Menstrie Museum, 1964, no. 19.
Ivoires du Musée du Louvre 1480-1850: une collection inédite, exhibition catalogue (Dieppe, Château-Musée de Dieppe, 2005), p. 46.
P. Malgouyres, Ivoires de la Renaissance et des Temps Modernes. La Collection du Musée du Louvre (Paris, 2010), p. 182.
J. Saviello, ‘Instrumente der Ordnung’, in P. Cordez and M. Kruger (eds), Werkzeuge und Instrumente (Berlin, 2012), p. 48.
J. Warren, Medieval and Renaissance Sculpture in the Ashmolean Museum, 3 vols (Oxford, 2014), Vol. 2: Sculptures in Stone, Clay, Ivory, Bone and Wood, pp. 603-4, in relation to no. 183.
P. Williamson and G. Davies, Medieval Ivory Carvings 1200-1550 (London, 2014), no. 218 (see also no. 208).
All images on this website are made available exclusively for scholarly and educational purposes and may not be used commercially.
