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			SubjectSecular. Arthurian Romance. Courtly love.
 
			  Repository Institution
www.britishmuseum.org
 
                        To purchase an image
www.bmimages.com
 
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			 London, The British Museum 1856,0623.166 (Dalton 368)  
                      
		      
                      
		      
                      
		      
                      
                      
		      
			 Ivory;metal (later fittings) Height: 80mmWidth: 210mm
 Depth: 130mm
  
                      
		      
			 LidAttack on the Castle of Love; lady throwing a flower from the battlements; catapult throwing flowers; winged God of Love throwing arrows at knights. Tournament; men and women observing the jousting knights in armour from a balcony; youth with a hawk on his wrist; two heralds in trees blowing trumpets; horses; shields. Attack on the Castle of Love; knight in armour assaulting the castle; ladies throwing flowers from the battlements; knight climbing a ladder; knight in armour kneeling before a lady who holds a key.
 Body, front
 Aristotle teaching Alexander; Aristotle ridden by Phyllis, observed by Alexander. Fountain of Youth decorated with monster heads; old and young; cripples with crutches; couples bathing.
 End, right
 Tristan and Iseult conversing; Tristan with a hawk on his wrist; dog on Iseult's lap; king Mark in the tree; fountain reflecting king Mark's face. Capture of the unicorn; man spearing the unicorn; maiden holding a chaplet; trees.
 Body, back
 Gawain in armour fighting the lion. Lancelot crossing the sword bridge, with spears falling from the sky. Gawain on the perilous bed, watched by the lion; bed on wheels with bells; shield with a lion paw; spears falling from the sky. The three maidens at the Château Merveil.
 End, left
 Galahad receiving the keys to the Castle of the Maidens (Château Merveil); horse; armour.
 
 Koechlin Number: 1283  
                      
		      
			   Dalton 1909: French, 14th century.Koechlin 1924: French, 1st half of 14th century.
 Ottawa 1972: Paris, 1st quarter of the 14th century.
 Baron 1981: Paris, 2nd quarter of the 14th century.
 Robinson 2008: Paris, 1325-1350.
 Delcourt 2009: Paris, 14th century.
 
 
		        
		      
		      
			
			  AttributionUnknown
 
			  ReverseCarved on all sides.
 
			  Object ConditionLid cracked and restored.
 
			  ProvenanceCollection of S. W. Stevenson, Norwich (b. 1784, d. 1853), on or before 1850; collection of William Maskell (b. 1814, d. 1890), purchased in 1854 through Sothebys; British Museum, by purchase, 1856.
 
			  BibliographyArchaeologia, XXXII  (1850), p. 446.
 T. Wright, Journal of the British Archaeological Association, 5 (1850), p. 267.
 T. Wright, Essays on Archaeological Subjects, 2 (1858), p. 88.
 The Burlington Magazine (1904), pp. 301-3 (illustration).
 O. M. Dalton, Catalogue of the Ivory Carvings of the Christian Era in the British Museum (London, 1909), no. 368, pl. LXXXVI, LXXXIV, LXXXV.
 R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, pp. 485, 489, 491, 497, 501, 504, 506; II, no. 1283.
 R. H. Randall, Medieval Ivories in the Walters Art Gallery (Baltimore, 1969), in relation to no. 18.
 Art of the Courts of France and England from 1259-1328; L'Art et la cour: France et Angleterre 1259-1328, exhibition catalogue, Ottawa, Galerie nationale du Canada, 1972, no. 83, pl. 109.
 Les Fastes du Gothique: le siècle de Charles V, ed. by F. Baron, exhibition catalogue, Paris, Grand Palais, 1981, no. 127.
 J. Walworth, 'Tristan in Medieval Art', in Tristan and Isolde: a Casebook, ed. by J. T. Grimberg (New York and London, 1995), pp. 278-299 (fig. 10).
 J. Robinson, Masterpieces of Medieval Art (London, 2008), p. 216.
 La Légende du roi Arthur, dir. by T. Delcourt, exhibition catalogue, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, 2009, p. 172.
 P. Williamson and G. Davies, Medieval Ivory Carvings 1200-1550 (London, 2014), in relation to no. 227.
 
 
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