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Back panel (fragment of a casket; coffret) (Front)

Back panel (fragment of a casket; coffret) (Front)
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Front

Subject
Secular. Courtly love.

Repository Institution
www.clemusart.com


Cleveland, The Cleveland Museum of Art

1978.39c

Ivory

Height: 97mm
Width: 259mm
Depth: 8mm

Scene 1: Perceval or Gawain (?) and an old man holding a key.
Scene 2: Gawain in armour fighting the lion.
Scene 3-4: Lancelot crossing the sword bridge, with spears falling from the sky; maidens in a castle.


Koechlin Number: 1288

Koechlin 1924: France, 1st half of the 14th century.
Museum's opinion 2010: French (Lorraine?), c. 1330-1350.


Attribution
Unknown

Object Condition
Nineteen drilled holes, nine of which have been filled with an ivory-like material. Numerous cracks. The columns have been re-carved and pigmented to match the rest of the panel. Some of the original carving was altered when the columns were re-carved.

Comments
The spears falling from the sky actually belong to the perilous bed episode.

Provenance
Trivulzio collection, Milan (before 1897, until at least 1924). Collection of Robert von Hirsch, Frankfurt-am-Main (until 1933) and Basel: sold, Sotheby's, Parke Bernet, London, 22 June 1978, lot 290; bought by the museum thanks to the John L. Severance Fund.

Bibliography
C. T. Gatty, Catalogue of Mediaeval and Later Antiquities contained in the Mayer Museum (Liverpool, 1883), p. 23, no. 67, pl. XI.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), II, no. 1288.
W. Hugelshofer, 'Aus Einer Basler Privatsammlung', in DU 12 (1951), p. 58, repr. pp. 52-53.
W. D. Wixom, 'Eleven Additions to the Medieval Collection', in Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art (1979), pp. 86-151 (pp. 110-126).
Deutsche Literatur im Mittelalter: Kontakte und Perspektiven. Hugo Kuhn zum Gedenken, ed. by C. Cormeau (Stuttgart, 1979), pp. 494-495, fig. 28.
'The Year in Review 1978', in Cleveland Museum of Art Bulletin (1979), pp. 11, 42.
E. W. Kleinbauer, 'Recent Major Acquisitions of Medieval Art by American Museums', in Gesta 19/1 (1980), pp. 71-72.
B. A. Kathman, A Cleveland Bestiary, exhibition catalogue, Cleveland Museum of Art, 1981, no. 6, pp. 2, 12-13.
R. Martin Nagy, Textiles in the Daily Life of the Middle Ages, exhibition catalogue, Cleveland Museum of Art, 1985, no. 24, pp. 47-48 and 60.
Ivory: An International History and Illustrated Survey (New York, 1987), p. 106.
Survival of the Gods: Classical Mythology in Medieval Art, exhibition catalogue, Providence, Rhode Island, Brown University Bell Gallery, 1987, no. 20, pp. 64-65.
M. Gibson, The Liverpool Ivories: late antique and medieval ivory and bone carving in Liverpool Museum and the Walker Art Gallery (London, 1994), p. 98.
H. A. Klein, S. N. Fliegel, V. Brilliant, Sacred Gifts and Worldly Treasures: Medieval Masterworks from the Cleveland Museum of Art, exhibition catalogue, Cleveland Museum of Art, 2007, no. 67, pp. 188-189.
S. N. Fliegel, Arms and Armor (Cleveland, 2007), p. 68.
P. Williamson and G. Davies, Medieval Ivory Carvings 1200-1550 (London, 2014), in relation to no. 227.


Image

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