Gothic Ivories Project | Casket (coffret) (End, right)

Lid
Female musicians playing the psaltery; courting couple (meeting of lovers); castle battlements; elopement (variation on Attack on the Castle of Love); knight and lady on horseback; couple in a boat; bridge decorated with rosettes. Tournament; couples (including a queen) observing the jousting knights in armour from a balcony; lady holding a dog; two heralds in trees blowing trumpets; trees; horses; shields. Attack on the Castle of Love; lady throwing flowers from the battlements; catapult throwing flowers; knights in armour assaulting the castle; knight climbing a ladder.
Body, front
Aristotle teaching Alexander; Alexander as a king holding a sceptre; pulpit with open book; curtain. Phyllis riding Aristotle; Alexander watching from the castle battlements. Thisbe finds refuge from the lion in a tree; lion with a piece of Thisbe's veil in its mouth. Death of Pyramus and Thisbe; fountain decorated with lion heads or monster heads
End, right
Knight in armour delivering a lady from a wild man; the knight kills the wild man with his spear. Knight and an old man (hermit?) holding a key.
Body, back
Gawain in armour fighting the lion. Lancelot crossing the sword bridge, with spears falling from the sky. Gawain on the perilous bed; bed on wheels and with bells; shield with a lion's paw; spears falling from the sky. The three maidens at the Château Merveil.
End, left
Tristan and Iseult conversing; Tristan with a hawk on his wrist; dog on Iseult's lap; king Mark in the tree; fountain reflecting king Mark's face. Capture of the unicorn; man spearing the unicorn; maiden holding a mirror; trees.

Koechlin 1924 and Vitali 1976: France, 1st half of 14th century.
Gaborit-Chopin 1988: Paris, 2nd quarter of the 14th century.
Florence 1989: France (Paris), c. 1330-1340.
Museum's opinion 2012: France (Paris), c. 1330-1340.

Attribution
Atelier of the Cracow casket (Koechlin 1924)

Reverse
Carved on all sides.

Object Condition
Holes for the lost fittings and handle.

Provenance
Carrand collection: bequeathed by Louis Carrand (d. 1888) to the Museo del Bargello in 1888.

Bibliography
G. Sangiorgi, Collection Carrand au Bargello (Rome, 1895), p. 11, pl. 14.
I. B. Supino, Catalogo del Regio Museo Nazionale di Firenze (Rome, 1898), no. 123, pp. 236-237, no. 123.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, pp. 485, 489, 490, 497, 501, 505, 506; II, no. 1286
Firenze ai tempi di Dante, exhibition catalogue, Florence, Certosa di Galluzo, 1966, p. 123, no. 144, pl. 52.
L. Vitali, Avori gotici francesi (Milan, 1976), p. 24, no. 10.
D. Gaborit-Chopin, Avori medievali - Museo Nazionale del Bargello (Florence, 1988), pp. 66-67, no. 18.
Arti del Medio Evo e del Rinascimento. Omaggio ai Carrand, 1889-1989, exhibition catalogue, Florence, Museo Nazionale del Bargello, 1989, pp. 246-248, no. 28.
P. Williamson and G. Davies, Medieval Ivory Carvings 1200-1550 (London, 2014), in relation to no. 227.

All images on this website are made available exclusively for scholarly and educational purposes and may not be used commercially.