Seated queen feeding a squirrel; throne.
Paris 1954: France, late 13th century.
Lowden 2008: Germany, c. 1350-1400. Radiocarbon dating produced a date of 690+- 30 years BP, i.e. a 95.4% probability of a date for the ivory within the range AD 1270-1330 (61.6%) or 1350-1390 (33.8%).
Museum's opinion 2008: North French (?), late 14th-early 15th century.
Attribution
Unknown
Reverse
Carved in the round.
Back decorated with a pattern of diagonals enclosing a fleur-de-lys in a diamond-shaped space.
Object Condition
Missing: top of her staff; left side of the throne; crown partly broken.
Comments
Similar to a king seated on a similar throne in the Metropolitan Museum (formerly Kofler-Truniger collection, no. S37). Weight: 43 g.
Provenance
Collection of P. Antonini (in 1954). Collection of Alexandrine de Rothschild. Thomson collection, Toronto: acquired, Sotheby's, London, 18 May 1967, lot 22, via Hermann Baer; since 2008, The Thomson Collection at the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO), Toronto.
Bibliography
Chefs d'oeuvre de la curiosité du monde, exhibition catalogue, Paris, Musée des Arts Décoratifs, 10 June-30 September 1954, no. 267, pl. 121.
J. Cherry, J. Lowden, Medieval Ivories and Works of Art: The Thomson Collection at the Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto, 2008), cat. 42.
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