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 three chess pieces in her left hand; man and lady wearing chaplets pierced with small holes.
Corner terminals: four crouching monsters.
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 (Paris) or Lower Rhenish (Cologne), c. 1320.
Attribution
Master of the Cologne Casket of saint Ursula, also known as Atelier aux bandeaux gemmés (Gaborit-Chopin 1978)
Reverse
Back turned with a depression for (missing) mirror.
Label with number '2004' refers to Salting Bequest.
Comments
In all pieces attributed to this atelier, figures wear chaplets pierced with small holes, where gems must have been originally inserted.
Provenance
Collection of Albert Denison, Baron Londesborough (b.1805, d. 1860) and then by descent until the Londesborough sale, Christie, Manson and Woods, London, 10 July 1888, lot 757 (bought by Murray); collection of Émile Gavet: his sale, Paris, 31 May-9 June 1897, lot 329, with ill. (mirror image); collection of George Salting, London; Salting bequest 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. 226.
W. Griggs, Portfolio of Ivories [London, 1904-1907], pt. XXVII.
A. Maskell, Ivories (Connoisseurs Library), (London, 1905), pl. XLVIII.
'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. 93.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, pp. 376, 288, 435, 482; II, no. 1044.
M. Longhurst, Catalogue of Carvings in Ivory, Victoria and Albert Museum, 2 vols (London, 1927 and 1929), II (1929), p. 46, pl. XLV.
D. Gaborit-Chopin, Ivoires du Moyen Age (Freiburg, 1978), p. 209.
Medioevo e produzione artistica di serie. Smalti di Limoges e avori gotici in Campania, ed. by P. Giusti, P. Leone de Castris, exhibition catalogue, Naples, Museo Duca di Martina, 1981, p. 98.
D. Gaborit-Chopin, Avori medievali - Museo Nazionale del Bargello (Florence, 1988), p. 65.
P. M. Carns, ‘Cutting a fine figure: costume on French Gothic Ivories’, in Medieval Clothing and Textiles, Vol. 5 (2009), pp. 55-91 (p. 68).
J. Warren, Medieval and Renaissance Sculpture in the Ashmolean Museum, 3 vols (Oxford, 2014), Vol. 2: Sculptures in Stone, Clay, Ivory, Bone and Wood, p. 568, in relation to no. 164.
P. Williamson and G. Davies, Medieval Ivory Carvings 1200-1550 (London, 2014), no. 195.
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