Offering of the heart; youth kneeling before a lady; trees. Lady making a wreath; youth and lady plucking flowers or fruits from a tree.
Embracing couple; courting couple (meeting of lovers).
Ladies standing on the back of a crouching man.
Capital; foliated decoration.
Koechlin 1924: France, 1st half of the 14th century.
Gaborit-Chopin 2003 and Museum's opinion 2010: North Italy?, 2nd half of the 14th century.
Attribution
Unknown
Polychromy - Gilding
No trace (see report by A. Cascio and J. Levy, 1995).
Reverse
Carved in the round.
Object Condition
Surfaces worn.
Missing: the arms of several of the characters, as well as the objects they were holding, and the head and part of the body of one of them.
Scratches on the top suggesting that the upper part (lost) must have been glued.
Modern metal rod embedded deep in the lower part.
Comments
Koechlin (1924) suggested that the man on all fours depicted an episode from the Lai d'Aristote, in which the philosopher offers to support the courtesan Campaspe, watched by his student, Alexandre. Gaborit-Chopin (2003) disputes this identification.
Provenance
Collection of Victor Gay, Paris (d. 1887); collection of Mrs V. Gay. Gift of a group of friends of the Louvre, 1909.
Bibliography
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, pp. 418, note 7, 419, 421; II, no. 1140; III, pl. CXC.
D. Gaborit-Chopin, 'Aristote et les roses: sur un manche de couteau du musée du Louvre', in In Italiam nos fata trahunt, sequamur. Mélanges en l'honneur d'Olga Pujmanova (Prague, 2003), pp. 41-44, fig. 4-8.
D. Gaborit-Chopin, Ivoires médiévaux, Ve-XVe siècle (Paris: Musée du Louvre, 2003), no. 229.
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