Gothic Ivories Project

Brass (hinges);canvas (post-medieval lining);bone;wood (core and squares alternating with bone squares on the bottom)

Lid
Male dancers; female dancer; musician with drum and whistle; dancing jester; moresca.
Body, front
Garden of Love; courting couple (meeting of lovers); offering of a flower; trees; basse dance.
End, right
Two courting couples (meeting of lovers); two couples holding hands; male musician playing the flute; couples dancing; men holding torches; trees.
Body, back
Jester holding a purse; lady; birds; trees.
End, left
Jousting knights in armour; shields; horses; trees.
Chequered pattern on the bottom.
Foliated border with roses. Crosshatched background.

Westwood 1876: England (?), late 15th century.
Koechlin 1924: France, end of the 15th century.
Longhurst 1929: France, end of the 15th century.
Williamson and Davies 2014: South Netherlandish, c. 1440-70.

Attribution
Unknown

Polychromy - Gilding
Extensive traces of gilding and polychromy: green, brown, and red (interior once painted red), gold (hair; straps on the drum; borders).

Reverse
Carved on all sides. Underside inlaid with a checkerboard of bone and dark wood.

Object Condition
Missing: portions of the lower border and of the bottom (replaced with wood).
Two holes on each long sides and single hole in rear for rings .

Comments
Koechlin and Longhurst believe the box to be French but made under Italian influences in the court circle of Charles VI.
V&A Inv. 6747-1860 is an almost exact copy.

Provenance
(probably) Acquired by the museum in Brussels, purchased in 1859.

Bibliography
Inventory of the Objects in the Art Division of the Museum at South Kensington, arranged according to the dates of their acquisition (London, 1868), I, p. 31.
W. Maskell, Ivories Ancient and Mediaeval in the South Kensington Museum (London, 1872), p. 20.
J. O. Westwood, Fictile Ivories in the South Kensington Museum (London, 1876), no. 716 ('73.260b)
J. von Schlosser, ‘Die Werkstatt der Embriachi in Venedig’, in Jahrbuch der kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des Allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses 20 (1899), p. 227, cat. no. 59.
List of Works of Art acquired by the Victoria and Albert Museum during the Year 1867. Arranged according to the Dates of Acquisition (London, 1906), p. 31.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, p. 527; II, no. 1319; III, pl. CCXXX.
M. Longhurst, Catalogue of Carvings in Ivory, Victoria and Albert Museum, 2 vols (London, 1927 and 1929), II (1929), p. 54.
Clowning, exhbition catalogue, Castle Museum, Nottingham, 1977, no. 32.
P. Nuttall, 'Dancing, love and the ’beautiful game’. A new interpretation of a group of fifteenth-century ’gaming’ boxes’, in Renaissance Studies 24 (2010), pp. 10-11, figs. 1, 3-4, 10-11.
P. Williamson and G. Davies, Medieval Ivory Carvings 1200-1550 (London, 2014), no. 233, see also no. 216 and 234.

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