Inv. 71.204
Meeting of lovers (courting couples); offering of a ring; offering of a squirrel; offering of a flower; offering of a bunch of hearts; fashionable dress.
Crosshatched background; tiled roof or brickwork.
Lawrence 1969: France, 2nd half of the 15th century.
Ann Arbor 1975: Flemish or Burgundian, c. 1430.
Randall 1985 and Museum's opinion 2010: Burgundy or Flanders, 1410-1420.
Attribution
Unknown
Reverse
16th-century inscriptions: '1417' in Arabic numerals; poem in two lines divided in the centre by a configuration which may be the capital letter I or T: 'Dos Dame je vos aime leaulem[en]tPor Die [prie] que ne mobilie mis Et fie mon cors a vos comandemens (?)Sans moveste et sans nulle folie.'Translation:'Dear lady I love you loyallyAnd pray God that you not forget meAnd I place myself at your commandWithout evil intent and without folly'.
Object Condition
Several holes for original mounts. Some now filled with plaster. Broken on the right side.
Comments
Style of costume paralleled in early 15th-century Hours made in Northeastern France (see work of the Master of Walters 219 named after a Baltimore book of hours for the use of Châlons-sur-Marne datable before 1416) (Randall 1985).
Provenance
Bought by Henry Walters in 1925; Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.
Bibliography
The Waning Middle Ages, ed. by J.L. Schrader, exhibition catalogue, Lawrence, University of Kansas, 1969, no. 87, pl. XVIII.
Images of Love and Death in Renaissance and Late Medieval Art, exhibition catalogue, ed. by W. R. Levin, Ann Harbor, University of Michigan, Nov. 1975-Jan. 1976, no. 65, pl. III.
R. H. Randall, Masterpieces of Ivory from the Walters Art Gallery (New York, 1985), no. 357.
All images on this website are made available exclusively for scholarly and educational purposes and may not be used commercially.