Gothic Ivories Project | Box (boite) (Body, front)

Lid
Register 1: lady holding a flower; peacock; man holding a flute or a stick (?).
Register 2: male musician playing a string instrument; fountain decorated with animal heads; female musician playing the harp.
Body, front
Hunter with a spear; archer with a bow; trees.
End, right
Hunter on foot blowing a horn; dogs pursuing a stag; trees; sun.
Body, back
Knight jousting; knight in armour on horseback.
End, left
Gathering of pears (?); man holding a club to beat the tree and make the fruits fall; female figure collecting the fruits in her skirt; female musician playing the harp; servant with a stick.
Foliated border; crosshatched background.
Chequered pattern on the bottom.

Attribution
Unknown

Polychromy - Gilding
Extensive traces of gilding and polychromy: gold (border, hair, background, feathers), green (trees, ground, foliated borders), brown (hair, clothing), red and blue (clothing).

Reverse
Engraved on all sides.
White label with the cancelled inscription: ‘46949’.

Object Condition
Missing: numerous panels and strips on the back of the box, the right end and the lid; lower strips all around the casket, and most of the squares of the chequered pattern on the bottom.

Provenance
Bequeathed by Martí Estany in 1945.

Bibliography
A. Maseres, ‘La collecció d'arquetes de Martí Estany’, Butlletí dels Museus d'Art de Barcelona, VII, 79 (1937), pp. 357-367 (p. 366, fig. p. 361).
La paz y la guerra en la época del Tratado de Tordesillas, ed. by A. Bartolomé Arraiza, exhibition catalogue, Burgos, Monasterio de San Juan, Convento de las Bernardas, 1994, no. 113, p. 157 (S. Rodríguez Bernis).
M. R. Manote, Guia art gòtic (Barcelona, 1998), p. 241, no. 38.
La Musique et les arts figurés en Espagne, ed. by J.-L. Augé, exhibition catalogue, Castres, Musée Goya, 23 June - 8 October 2000, no. 1, pp. 22-23 (J.-L. Augé).
A. Galán y Galindo, ‘Las arquetas de trovadores; canciones, música y amor. Desde Bagdad, a los trovadores medievales, pasando por Córdoba’, Arte, Arqueología e Historia, 18 (2011), pp. 77-106, p. 98.

All images on this website are made available exclusively for scholarly and educational purposes and may not be used commercially.