Hawking party; hunting scene; courting couple (meeting of lovers); lady and youth hawking on horseback; lady and youth with a hawk on their wrist; female hunter on horseback holding a lure for hawks; hunter blowing a horn; trees.
Corner terminals: four lions. Masks in the spandrels.
Molinier 1890 and Bode 1897: France, 14th century.
Koechlin 1924: France, 1st half of the 14th century.
Rubinstein-Bloch 1926: France, 1st half of the 14th century.
New York 1970 and 1975: France, 14th century.
Ann Arbor 1975: French, 14th century.
Museum's opinion 2012: French (possibly Paris), 1350-1375.
Attribution
Unknown
Reverse
Back turned with a depression for (missing) mirror. Lions carved in the round.
Printed label: 'collection 1893 Spitzer'; with a monogram 'O H A', probably for Hainauer. Label with handwritten pencil inscription: 'M. 35'.
Object Condition
Missing: tail of one lion; the head of another lion and the body of a third one have been restored.
Later hole in the upper part of the piece for hanging.
Comments
This piece forms a pair with Koechlin 1014.
Provenance
Collection of Frédéric Spitzer (d. 1890), Paris: his sale, Chevallier and Mannheim, Paris, 17 April 1893, lot 104. Collection of Oscar Hainauer (b. 1840s?, d. 1894), Berlin (Inv. Eb. 2); collection of Julie Hainauer (b. 1884, d. 1906), Berlin. Duveen Brothers, Paris, London, and New York (in 1906). Collection of George and Florence Blumenthal, New York (by 1926): gift of George Blumenthal in 1941.
Bibliography
La Collection Spitzer (Paris, 1890), I, no. 69 (E. Molinier).
W. Bode, Die Sammlung Oscar Hainauer (Berlin, 1897), no. 131, ill. p. 83. pl. XIV, fig. 2.
Ausstellung von Kunstwerken des Mittelalters und der Renaissance aus berliner Privatbesitz, veranstaltet von der kunstgeschichtlichen Gesellschaft, exhibition catalogue, Berlin, 20 May-3 July 1898, pl. XIV, no. 2.
W. Bode, The Collection of Oscar Hainauer (London, 1906), p. 5.
R. Koechlin, Les ivoires gothiques français (1924), I, p. 384, n. 4, p. 385, n. 1 and 6; II, no. 1032.
S. Rubinstein-Bloch, Catalogue of the collection of George and Florence Blumenthal (Paris, 1926), III, pl. V.
Seventh loan exhibition: French Gothic Art, exhibition catalogue, Detroit, Detroit Institute of Arts, 1928, no. 65, fig. 65.
Arts of the Middle Ages, a loan exhibition, exhibition catalogue, Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, 1940, no. 139, pl. LIII.
The Middle Ages: Treasures from The Cloisters and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, exhibition catalogue, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, January 18 - March 29, 1970 and The Art Institute, May 16 - July 5, 1970, no. 74 (entry by V. K. Ostoia).
The Secular Spirit: Life and Art at the End of the Middle Ages, exhibition catalogue, New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1975, no. 104, p. 93.
Images of Love and Death in Renaissance and Late Medieval Art, exhibition catalogue, ed. by W. R. Levin, Ann Arbor, University of Michigan, November 1975-January 1976, no. 69, pl. V.
Images in Ivory. Precious Objects of the Gothic Age, ed. by Peter Barnet, exhibition catalogue, Detroit, The Detroit Institute of Arts, and Baltimore, The Walters Art Gallery, 1997, no. 60, pp. 235-236.
All images on this website are made available exclusively for scholarly and educational purposes and may not be used commercially.
