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Casket, with quatrefoils (coffret; quatre-feuilles); also known as the Gort Casket (Body, Back)

Casket, with quatrefoils (coffret; quatre-feuilles); also known as the Gort Casket (Body, Back)
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Body, front

Lid

Body, back

Body, front

End, right

End, left

Lid

Body, front

End, left

Subject
Secular. Arthurian romance. Courtly love.

Repository Institution
wag.ca

To purchase an image
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Winnipeg, Winnipeg Art Gallery

G-73-60

Ivory;bronze (fittings);wood (bottom)

Height: 86mm
Width: 250mm
Depth: 131mm

Lid
Tournament scene interspersed with a row of courtly love scenes enclosed in quatrefoils.
Register 1: ladies and youths observing the tournament from a balcony with lozenge patterns; courting couples (meeting of lovers); offering of a chaplet; lady feeding a hawk; couples conversing; youth chucking his lover under the chin.
Register 2 (in quatrefoils): courting couples (meeting of lovers); couple conversing; lady crowning her kneeling lover with a chaplet. Couple playing chess in a tent; youth feeding a hawk. Youth with a hawk on his wrist; couple making a wreath; youth handing a flower to his lover. Youth with a hawk on his wrist; youth chucking his lover under the chin; lady holding a chaplet.
Register 3: Knight kneeling before a lady who places a helm over his head; lady holding a spear (on either side of the central scene). Tournament; jousting knights in armour on horseback; four heralds blowing trumpets.
Body, front
Aristotle studying; Aristotle ridden by Phyllis, observed by Alexander (?); Alexander approaching Phyllis at the loom or Phyllis sitting at window holding a sword; Alexander holding gloves; Aristotle courting Phyllis (?); Virgil ridiculed in the basket, hanging from the battlements; saddled Virgil whipped by Phyllis who holds her heart in her right hand; man feeding a hawk.
End, right
Fountain of Youth; old and young; horse-drawn cart; couples bathing.
Body, back
Army before the gates of a city; kneeling figure holding a spear in a position of surrender; king and eleven knights in armour with swords and shields.
End, left
Knight in armour and wild man fighting over a maiden (Enyas and the Woodhouse?); knight on horseback; sword; dead lion. Gawain on the perilous bed; bed on wheels; lion; swords and spear falling from the sky; the three maidens at the Château Merveil.

Ross 1948: Paris, end of the 1st half of the 14th century.
Museum's opinion 2012: French, 14th century.


Attribution
Unknown

Reverse
Carved on all sides.

Object Condition
Cracked. The bottom of the casket is made of a wood panel, probably replacing an ivory panel. Holes for lost fittings and lock.

Provenance
Collection of Lord Gort, Bunratty Castle (bought in a Brighton junk shop in 1945); gift of Lord and Lady Gort, 1973.

Bibliography
D. J. A. Ross, 'Allegory and Romance on a Mediaeval French Marriage Casket', in Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 11 (1948), pp. 112-142.
J. Bugslag, 'A "lost" ivory casket in the Gort Collection at the Winnipeg Art Gallery', in Racar XXXII/1-2 (2007), pp. 5-18.
R. A. Leson, 'Chivalry and Alterity: Saladin and The Remembrance of Crusade in a Walters Histoire d'Outremer', in Journal of the Walters Art Museum 68 (2010-2011), pp. 87-96.
P. Mae Carns, 'A curious collection in ivory: the Lord Gort Casket', in Collections in Context: the Organization of Knowledge and Community in Europe, ed. by K. Fresco and A. D. Hedeman (Columbus (Ohio), 2012), pp. 246-174.
P. Williamson and G. Davies, Medieval Ivory Carvings 1200-1550 (London, 2014), in relation to no. 227.


Image

© Winnipeg Art Gallery, Winnipeg. Gift of Lord and Lady Gort.

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