Side 1: Garden of Love; courting couples (meeting of lovers); seated male musician playing the shawm; lady holding a flower; lady holding a stem of flowers; seated couple making a wreath by a flowery bush; youth with a hawk on his wrist.
Side 2: marriage scene; male musician playing the lute; male musician playing the shawm; courting couple (meeting of lovers); youth holding a chaplet or wreath; hanging purse; two standing ladies.
Crosshatched background; roped border; foliated decoration with flowers.
Longhurst 1929: France, 2nd half of the 15th century.
Williamson and Davies 2014: French or Flemish, c. 1500-20.
Attribution
Unknown
Reverse
Carved on both sides. Labels on outer edges with Salting Bequest number, Heckscher number 'H.17', and label with 'Lord Londesborough'.
Object Condition
Missing: upper row of finer teeth (probably removed between 1855 and 1857, see Williamson and Davies 2014).
Provenance
Collection of Ralph Bernal (b. 1783, d. 1854), London: Bernal sale, Christie & Manson, London, 21 March 1855, lot 1622. Collection of Albert Denison Denison, 1st Baron Londesborough (b. 1805, d.1860), by 1857: Londesborough sale, Christie's, London, 10 July 1888, lot 793 (bought Whitehead). Collection of Martin Hecksher: Hecksher sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, 4-6 May 1898, lot 262. Collection of George Salting, London: Salting bequest to the museum in 1910.
Bibliography
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, 1863), no. 232.
F. W. Fairholt, Miscellanea graphica: representations of ancient, medieval, and renaissance remains in the possession of Lord Londesborough (London, 1857), pl. XX, fig. 2.
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, 1863), no. 232.
E. Molinier, F. Marcou, L'Exposition rétrospective de l'Art français des origines à 1800 (Paris, 1900), no. 183.
Exposition Universelle de 1900, Catalogue illustré Officiel de l'Exposition Rétrospective de l'Art Français (Paris, 1900), no. 183 (?)(owner's name mispelt 'Georges Solling, Londres').
'Salting Bequest (A. 70 to A. 1029-1910) / Murray Bequest (A. 1030 to A. 1096-1910)', In: List of Works of Art Acquired by the Victoria and Albert Museum (Department of Architecture and Sculpture) (London, 1910), p. 94
M. Longhurst, Catalogue of Carvings in Ivory, Victoria and Albert Museum, 2 vols (London, 1927 and 1929), II (1929), p. 54, pl. L.
P. Williamson and G. Davies, Medieval Ivory Carvings 1200-1550 (London, 2014), no. 217.
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