Gothic Ivories Project | Back panel (fragment of a casket; coffret) (Front)

Romance of the Châtelaine de Vergi
Scene 1: the knight brings the duke of Burgundy through the forest.
Scene 2: the duke observes the meeting of the two lovers, hidden behind a tree; the knight embraces the Châtelaine, her dog is at her feet.
Scene 3: the duke tells the duchess about their idyll.
Scene 4: the Châtelaine in her castle receives an invitation to the Carnival ball.

Koechlin 1924: France, 1st half of 14th century.
Lawrence 1969: French (Paris), 14th century.
Ann Arbor 1975: French (Paris), 1st half of the 14th century.
Randall 1993: French (Paris), 1330-1350.

Attribution
Unknown

Reverse
Flat and smooth, with a slight bevel to accommodate other panels of coffret. An illegible collector's stamp is visible at upper left. A web of masking tape has been applied to the back.

Object Condition
Holes (for fittings). A large crack runs horizontally across the centre of the panel and a smaller diagonal crack bisect the lower right corner.
Missing: lower right corner.

Provenance
Collection of Michel Boy, Paris: his sale, Galerie Georges Petit, 13-14 May 1905, lot 279 (no buyer listed). Fritz Engel-Gross collection, Paris (no. 143): sold, May 1921 to Demotte. Edward R. Lubin, New York: sold to the Museum in 1966 (gift of the Friends of the Museum of Art through the University of Kansas Endowment Association).

Bibliography
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, pp. 509, 513; II, no. 1305.
The Waning Middle Ages, ed. by J. L. Schrader, exhibition catalogue, Lawrence, University of Kansas, 1969, no. 81, pl V.
R. A. Youle, J. W. Ittmans, C. C. Eldredge, From the Collection of the University of Kansas Museum of Art, April 15 - June 13, 1971, exhibition catalogue, Houston, The Museum of Fine Arts, 1971, no. 16.
Images of Love and Death in Renaissance and Late Medieval Art, exhibition catalogue, ed. by W. R. Levin, Ann Arbor, University of Michigan, November 1975-January 1976, no. 66, pl. II.
Handbook of the Collection: Helen Foresman Spencer Museum of Art, ed. by E. Broun (Lawrence, 1978), p. 19, ill. 19.
J. T. Johnson, 'On Being a Humanist in the Art Museum', in The Register of the Spencer Museum of Art Special Issue: The Humanist in the Art Museum, vol. V no. 7 (Spring 1979), p. 66, fig. 1.
L. Gross, 'La Chastelaine de Vergi Carved in Ivory', in Viator 10 (1979), pp. 311-321.
M. Stokstad, J. Stannard, Gardens of the Middle Ages (Lawrence, 1983), pp. 23, 199, no. 54, ill. 200.
Songs of Glory, exhibition catalogue, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma Museum of Art, 1985, no. 87.
R. H. Randall, The Golden Age of Ivory: Gothic Ivory Carvings in North American Collections (New York, 1993), no. 181.
J. M. Musacchio, Art, Marriage and Family in the Florentine Renaissance Palace (New Haven, 2008), pp. 100-101, ill. 101.

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