Couple playing chess in a tent; courting couple (meeting of lovers); man with his left hand around the pole supporting the tent; man lifting a chess piece with his right hand; lady holding two chess pieces in her left hand.
Masks in the spandrels.
Westwood 1876: England, 14th century.
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: France or possibly the Lower Rhine (Cologne), c. 1320-30.
Attribution
Unknown
Reverse
Flat and smooth. Originally: back turned with a depression for (missing) mirror.
Bevelled border filed down.
Object Condition
Missing: original bevelled border on the reverse.
Worn.
hole at the top.
Provenance
In the possession of John Webb (b. 1799, d. 1880), London, by 1862: purchased from him by the Museum in 1867.
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, 1862), no. 140.
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. 85.
J. O. Westwood, Fictile Ivories in the South Kensington Museum (London, 1876), no. 883 (`73.336).
W. Griggs, Portfolio of Ivories [London, 1904-1907], pt. XXVIII.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, p. 388; II, no. 1045.
M. Longhurst, Catalogue of Carvings in Ivory, Victoria and Albert Museum, 2 vols (London, 1927 and 1929), II (1929), p. 47, pl. XLV.
P. Williamson and G. Davies, Medieval Ivory Carvings 1200-1550 (London, 2014), no. 197.
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