Gothic Ivories Project | Writing tablet, 2 registers, 2 arches across, bands of rosettes (tablette à écrire; frise d'arcatures; colonnettes; décor de roses) (Back)

Register 1: courting couple (meeting of lovers); couple embracing. Youth chucking his lover under the chin; lady holding a dog.
Register 2: Couple playing chess; lady holding three chess pieces in her left hand. Youth kneeling before a lady.
Rounded trefoils in the spandrels.

Koechlin 1924: France, early 14th century.
Wehle 1947: French, 14th century.
New York 1975: French, 14th century.
Museum's opinion 2011: French, 14th century.

Attribution
Unknown

Reverse
Recessed to receive the wax, with a raised border.

Object Condition
Pierced by a hole for suspension.
Missing: upper right corner including the upper right colonnette (repaired); two central colonnettes (repaired?).

Provenance
Collection of Edward Barry, Toulouse: sale, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, 2-4 June 1880. Cardon collection, Brussels. Collection of Lucien Cottreau, Paris (by 1900): his sale, Paris, Galerie Georges Petit, 28-29 April 1910, lot 34. Collection of Paul Casimir Garnier, Paris: sale, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, 16-17 December 1916, p. 13. Collection of George and Florence Blumenthal (by 1926); collection of Ann Payne Blumenthal, New York: gift of Ann Payne Blumenthal, 1938.

Bibliography
W. H. Forsyth, 'A French medieval writing tablet', in Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin XXXIII (1938), p. 259-260.
H .B. Wehle, 'The Chess Players, by Francesco di Giorgio', in Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, N.S., V (Feb. 1947), p. 153.
Exposition Universelle de 1900, Catalogue illustré Officiel de l'Exposition Rétrospective de l'Art Français (Paris, 1900), no. 140, p. 265.
G. Migeon, Exposition rétrospective de l'art français (Paris, 1900), p. 17.
G. Migeon, 'L'Exposition rétrospective de l'art français', in Revue de l'art ancien et moderne 1 (1900), pp. 453-462, ill. p. 458.
G. Migeon, 'Collection Paul Garnier', in Les Arts, pt I, 51 (March 1906), pp. 3-11; and pt II, 53 (May 1906), pp. 13-24.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, p. 437; II, no. 1219.
S. Rubinstein-Bloch, Catalogue of the collection of George and Florence Blumenthal (Paris, 1926), III, pl. V.
L. Grodecki, Ivoires français (Paris, 1947), p. 118.
The Secular Spirit: Life and Art at the End of the Middle Ages, exhibition catalogue, New York, The Cloisters, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1975, no. 191.

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