Attack on the Castle of Love; knights in armour assaulting the castle; ladies throwing flowers from the battlements; shields with flowers; knights in armour fighting with swords; horses.
Corner terminals: four crouching monsters.
Westwood 1876 and Griggs 1904-1907: France 14th century.
Koechlin 1924: France, 1st half of the 14th century.
Williamson and Davies 2014: French (Paris), probably 1st half of the 19th century.
Attribution
Unknown
Reverse
Back turned with a depression, but no bevelling and no recess at the top to receive the bayonet mount of another disc.
The screw thread on the back is an anachronism.
Object Condition
Chipped upper border.
Missing: part of the background.
Provenance
Collection of Prince Petr Soltykoff (b. c. 1801, d. 1889): sale, Paris, Drouot, 8-10, 15-17, 22-24, 29 April and 1 May 1861, lot 355; purchased by John Webb (b. 1799, d. 1880), London; purchased from him by the Museum in 1867.
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, 1862), no. 141.
W. Maskell, Ivories Ancient and Mediaeval in the South Kensington Museum (London, 1872), p. 83.
J. O. Westwood, Fictile Ivories in the South Kensington Museum (London, 1876), no. 877 (`73.330).
W. Griggs, Portfolio of Ivories [London, 1904-1907], pt. XXVIII.
A. Michel, L'histoire de l'art depuis les premiers temps chrétiens jusqu'à nos jours, 8 vols, 17 parts (Paris, 1905-1929), II, p. 494.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, p. 406; II, no. 1084.
M. Longhurst, Catalogue of Carvings in Ivory, Victoria and Albert Museum, Vol. 2 (London, 1929), p. 48.
D. Ross, 'Allegory and Romance on a Mediaeval French Marriage Casket', in Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 11 (1948), p. 136, pl. 316.
P. Williamson and G. Davies, Medieval Ivory Carvings 1200-1550 (London, 2014), no. 206.
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