Gothic Ivories Project | Mirror case (valve de miroir) (Front)

Castle of love. Courting couples (meeting of lovers); two couples on a balcony; youth with a hawk on his wrist. Courting couples before the castle; youth chucking his lover under the chin; towers; staircase.
Corner terminals: four crouching monsters.

Darcel and Basilewski 1874: France, 13th century.
Koechlin 1924: France, 2nd quarter of the 14th century.
Kube 1925: France, 14th century.
Leningrad 1973 [Kryzhanovskaya]: France, 1st half of the 14th century.
Kryzhanovskaya 2014: France, 1st third of the 14th century.

Attribution
Unknown

Reverse
Back turned with a depression for (missing) mirror.

Object Condition
Central hole in the upper part.

Provenance
Collection of Alexander Petrovich Basilewski (b. 1829, d. 1899), acquired in 1874; acquired by the Museum in 1885.

Bibliography
A. Darcel, A. P. Basilewski, Collection Basilewski. Catalogue raisonné (Paris, 1874), no. 104.
J. O. Westwood, Fictile Ivories in the South Kensington Museum (London, 1876), p. 409.
R. Koechlin, 'Les Ivoires gothiques', in A. Michael, Histoire de l'art depuis le premiers temps chrétiens jusqu'à nos jours, (Paris, 1906), II, p. 494.
A. N. Kube, Gosudarstvennyi Ermitazh. Putevoditel' po otdeleniiu srednikh vekov i epokhi Vozrozhdeniia [State Hermitage Museum. Guide to the Medieval and Renaissance sections] (Saint Petersburg, 1921), p. 59.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, pp. 381, 401; II, no. 1016.
A. N. Kube, Reznaia kost'. Katalog [Ivory Carvings Catalogue Hermitage], (Leningrad [Saint-Petersburg], 1925), no. 94.
Gosudarstvennyi Ermitazh. Kratkii spravochnik s planom i 19 tablitsami (Leningrad [Saint Petersburg], 1934), I, p. 96.
D. J. A. Ross, 'Allegory and Romance on a Mediaeval French Marriage Casket', in Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 11 (1948), p. 116, note 7; p. 117, note 3.
E. A. Lapkovskaia, Gosudarstvennyi Ermitazh. Prikladnoe iskusstvo Zapadnoi Evropy V-XV vv. [State Hermitage Museum. Applied Arts of Western Europe from the Vth to the 15th century] (Leningrad [Saint Petersburg], 1956), p. 29.
Zapadnoevropeiskaia reznaia kost' IX-XIX vekov iz sobraniia Ermitazha: katalog vystavki, exhibition catalogue, Leningrad [Saint Petersburg], The State Hermitage Museum, 1973, no. 176.
M. Kryzhanovskaya, 'Kostianoi larets XIV veka i rodstvennye emu pamiatniki v sobranii Gosudarstvennogo Ermitazha', in Kul'tura i iskusstvo zapadnoevropeiskogo srednevekov'ia: materialy nauchnoi konferentsii (Moscow, 1981), pp. 277-288 (p. 288).
Zapadnoevropeiskoe prikladnoe iskusstvo srednikh vekov i epokhi Vozrozhdeniia iz kollektsii A. P. Bazilevskogo, exhibition catalogue, Leningrad [Saint Petersburg], The State Hermitage Museum, 1986, no. 18.
E. Nekrasova, Proizvedeniia frantsuzskoi reznoi kosti XIV veka kak pamiatniki srednevekovoi kurtuaznoi kul'tury, PhD thesis (Academy of Arts, Saint Petersburg, 2002), p. 44.
W. Uitgevers, Liefde uit de Hermitage, exhibition catalogue, Amsterdam, Zwjlle-DeNieuwe Kerk, 2003, no. 69.
M. Kryzhanovskaya, Western European Medieval Ivories. Catalogue of the Collection (Зaпaднoeврoпeйскaя рeзнaя кoстъ Срeдних вeкoв. Кataлoг кoллeкции), (Saint Petersburg, 2014), no. 104.

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