Gothic Ivories Project | Saddle (selle) (Side, left)

Right side
Seated figure holding a scroll with inscription 'dich hab got' (?); standing king holding a flower; princess holding a scroll with inscription 'Ritt sad iorig'; woven fence; ladies holding a scroll with inscription 'ich han nicht lieben wen dich'; youth (jester?) aiming with bow and arrow; seated lady holding a blank scroll; trees; scroll forming the letter 'a'.
Left side
Angel; clouds; standing princess; saint George and the dragon; lady holding a scroll with inscription 'huerd' or 'Sit erd' (?); ladies holding a scroll with inscription 'ALLAIN MEIN ODER LOCGAR SEIN'; seated youth holding a flower (?); youth with a hawk on his wrist; glove; seated lady; fashionable dress; trees; hybrid with scroll; scroll forming the letter 'b'.
Checkered pattern.

Attribution
Unknown

Polychromy - Gilding
Traces of blue and green (the last one is possibly a later addition).

Reverse
Engraved on all sides.

Object Condition
Missing: some parts.

Comments
The inscriptions are in a high German dialect.

Provenance
Medici collection (transferred from Palazzo Pitti to the Guardaroba generale of the Palazzo Vecchio on 10 December 1780; from 24 January 1781, returned to the Real Galleria); came to the museum on 1865.

Bibliography
A. Campani, Guida per il visitatore del R. Museo Nazionale nell'antico palazzo del Potestà in Firenze (Florence, 1884), p. 116.
J. von Schlosser, 'Elfenbeinsättel des ausgehenden Mittelalters', in Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses, 15 (1894), pp. 260-294, no. 20, fig. 12. Fully accessible online as part of the Heidelberger historische Bestände:
http://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/jbksak1894/0318 [accessed 24/07/2013].
I. B. Supino, Catalogo del R. Museo Nazionale di Firenze (Rome, 1898), p. 373.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, p. 212; II, no. 476.
H. Stafski, Kataloge des Germanischen Nationaslmuseums Nürnberg. Die mittelalterlichen Bildwerke, Pt. 1. Die Bildwerke in Stein, Holz, Ton und Elfenbein bis um 1450 (Nuremberg, 1965), pp. 249-250, no. 228.
F. M. Kammel, 'Anbetung der Könige', in Die Heiligen Drei Könige. Spätgotische Skulpturen aus dem Germanischen Nationalmuseum in Nürnberg (Monatsanzeiger Sonderausgabe Bonn 1999)(Nuremberg, 1999), p. 12, no. 7.
M. Verő, 'Bemerkungen zu den beinsätteln aus der Sigismundzeit', in Sigismundus rex et imperator : Kunst und Kultur zur Zeit Sigismunds von Luxemburg 1387-1437, exhibition catalogue, Budapest and Luxemburg, 2006, pp. 270-278 (p. 277, no. 10) and no. 4.71 in the catalogue.

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