Side 1: Bust of man in profile.
Side 2: Bust of woman in profile.
Foliated decoration.
Longhurst 1929: Flanders or France (North), 1st half of the 16th century.
Williamson and Davies 2014: North French or South Netherlandish, c. 1520-1530.
Attribution
Unknown
Reverse
Carved on both sides. The underside has been hollowed out and the inside of the rim carved with a screw thread.
Object Condition
Pierced vertically for suspension.
Diagonal crack.
Provenance
Acquired in London by the Museum in 1854.
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. 15.
W. Maskell, Ivories Ancient and Mediaeval in the South Kensington Museum (London, 1872), p. 2.
A. Maskell, Ivories (Connoisseurs Library), (London, 1905), p. 270.
F. Parkes-Weber, Aspects of Death and Correlated Aspects of Life, 3rd ed. (London, 1918), p. 717.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, pp. 448-449.
M. Longhurst, Catalogue of Carvings in Ivory, Victoria and Albert Museum, 2 vols (London, 1927 and 1929), II (1929), p. 70, pl. LXV.
R. H. Randall, Masterpieces of Ivory from the Walters Art Gallery (New York, 1985), p. 248 (in relation to no. 368).
P. Williamson, 'Medieval Ivory Carvings in the Wernher Collection', in Apollo (May 2002), pp. 22-23, figs. 14-15.
P. Williamson and G. Davies, Medieval Ivory Carvings 1200-1550 (London, 2014), no. 164.
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