Gothic Ivories Project | Casket (coffret), with openwork panels (plaques ajourées) (Body, front)

Lid
Two jousting knights; horses; foliated scrolls.
Body, front
Lion; griffin.
End, right
Hunter spearing a stag.
Body, back
Hunter spearing a stag; hunter blowing a horn; two dogs; trees.
End, left
Wild man taming a bear.

Molinier 1890: German, 15th century.
Longhurst 1929: German, 15th century.
Halle 2006: German, 1st half of the 15th century.
Williamson and Davies 2014: Upper Rhenish, middle of 15th century, with restorations.

Attribution
Unknown

Reverse
Carved on all sides.
Two labels on base, one referring to 1857 Manchester Art Treasures Exhibition, the other to Salting Bequest number ('8255' written in ink directly onto leather)

Object Condition
Metal mount to the left of clasp hinge on front damaged. Repairs and fills made elsewhere, number of restorations, including leather, likely made around 1830.

Comments
The leather on the underside and inside is incised with plant designs in the corners and along the edges.

Provenance
Collection of Louis Fidel Debruge-Duménil (b. 1788, d. 1838), Paris; sale, Paris, 2 February 1850, lot 1494. Lord Hastings collection, Melton Constable, Norfolk, by 1857; Hastings sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, 20 March 1888, lot 259; collection of George Salting, London; Salting bequest to the museum in 1910.

Bibliography
S. R. Meyrick, 'The Doucean Museum', in Gentlemen's Magazine (April 1836), no. 13, p. 283.
J. Labarte, Description des objets d'art qui composent la collection Debruge-Duménil (Paris, 1847), no. 1494.
Catalogue of the Art Treasures of the United Kingdom, collected at Manchester in 1857, exhibition catalogue, 1857, no. 216.
La Collection Spitzer (Paris, 1890), I, no. 121 (E. Molinier).
'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.95
M. Longhurst, Catalogue of Carvings in Ivory, Victoria and Albert Museum, 2 vols (London, 1927 and 1929), II (1929), p. 57.
P. M. Halm and R. Berliner, Das Hallesche Heiltum (Berlin, 1931), no. 28.
J. Rasmussen, 'Untersuchungen zum Halleschen Heiltum des Kardinals Albrecht von Brandenburg', in Münchner Jahrbuch der bildenden Kunst 27 (1976), pp. 59-118 (p. 62).
H. Reber, Albrecht von Brandenburg. Kurfürst, Erzkanzler, Kardinal, 1490-1545, exhibition catalogue, Mainz, Landesmuseum Mainz, 1990, no. 63.
Das Rätsel Grünewald, ed. by R. Riepertinger, E. Brockhoff, K. Heinemann, J. Schumann, exhibition catalogue, Aschaffenburg, Schloss Johannisburg, 30 November 2002-28 February 2003, no. 172.
Der Kardinal Albrecht von Brandenburg: Renaissancefürst und Mäzen, ed. by T. Schauerte, exhibition catalogue, Halle an der Saale, 9 September - 26 November 2006, I, pp. 81-82, no. 19, ill. on p. 81.
N. Jopek, 'Der Kardinal', in Kunstchronik 61 (2008), p. 216
P. Williamson and G. Davies, Medieval Ivory Carvings 1200-1550 (London, 2014), no. 239.

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