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Chess piece (Back)

Chess piece (Back)
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Side

Front

Subject
Secular.

Repository Institution
thewalters.org

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Baltimore, Walters Art Museum

Inv. 71.1157

Walrus ivory

Height: 62mm
Width: 44-45mm

Rook; watchman with his back to a fence; watchman holding a sword and blowing into a horn; flanked by two smaller soldiers with shields.

Randall 1985 and Museum's opinion 2010: Scandinavian, 14th century.


Attribution
Unknown

Reverse
Carved in the round.

Object Condition
Stained brown.

Comments
Has the inscription 'H' on its base.
Similar pieces are to be found in the Musée de Cluny, Paris (Cl. 11286 & Cl. 11285) and the British Museum (1856,0612.2). See related objects.
The example in the British Museum also bears the inscription 'H' on the base.

Provenance
Found at the edge of the Thames at Puddle Dock, Blackfriars, London on 1962. Sotheby's, London, 9 April 1973, lot 14. Bought by the Walters Art Museum from Mrs John Hunt in Dublin in 1977, in memory of Marvin C. Ross.

Bibliography
R. H. Randall, 'In Honor of Marvin Ross', in The Bulletin of the Walters Art Gallery, 30:7 (1978), p. 2.
Eugene Kleinbauer, 'Recent Major Acquisitions of Medieval Art by American Museums', in Gesta, XX:2 (1981), p. 366.
R. H. Randall, Masterpieces of Ivory from the Walters Art Gallery (New York, 1985), no. 259.


Image

© Walters Art Museum, Baltimore.

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