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Writing tablet, 1 register (plaquette; tablette à écrire) (Front)

Writing tablet, 1 register (plaquette; tablette à écrire) (Front)
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Subject
Secular.

Repository Institution
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Budapest, Iparművészeti Múzeum (Museum of Applied Arts)

Inv. 18853

Ivory

Height: 104 mm
Width: 64 mm

Fortified city; monkey with bellows trying to make a windmill turn; bearded man sitting backwards on an ass, with a younger man holding the bridles and blowing a trumpet; onlookers.


Koechlin Number: 1183

Bock 1867: 14th century.
Westwood 1876: 14th century.
Koechlin 1924: France, end of the 14th century or 19th century (?).
Budapest 1973 and Budapest 1978: Netherlands, 14th century.


Attribution
Unknown

Reverse
Flat and smooth. Three incisions along the left edge. 19th-century inscription in German on the back, explaining that, in the year 1000, Otto III, having captured Crescentius, condemned him to the gallows, while Pope Joan was condemned to have ears, nose and tongue cut and forced to cross Rome mounted backwards on an ass: 'Nachdem Crescentius Burgermeister zu Rom in Lebenszeit Otto III. römischen Kaisers Papst Gregorium aus dem Sitz und Anstatt einem Joannem einem Griechen erhoben: liess besagter Kaiser Crescentium an Galgen hängen Joannem aber Nase Ohren und Zunge agscheiden und solchen auf einem Esel Ruckwerts sitzend durch die Stadt Rom herimführen. So geschehen im Jahre Christ 1000.'

Object Condition
Pierced at the top for suspension. Vertical crack to the right of the monkey. Brown discolouration at the upper right corner.

Comments
Koechlin pairs this panel with his no. 1184, which is in The State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg (Inv. F 3204).

Provenance
Acquired in 1852; transferred from the Hungarian National Museum in 1936.

Bibliography
F. Bock, 'Das Ungarische Museum in Pest', in Mitteilungen der K.K. Central-Commission zur Erforschung und Erhaltung der Baudenkmale 12 (1867), p. 117, no. 8.
J. O. Westwood, Fictile Ivories in the South Kensington Museum (London, 1876), p. 466.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, p. 444; II, no. 1183.
Az európai iparművészet remekei. Száz éves az Iparművészeti Múzeum. 1872-1972, ed. by D. Radocsay, Z. Farkas, exhibition catalogue, Budapest, Iparművészeti Múzeum, 1972, no. 23.
Kisplasztikai kiállítás a 10.-től a 19.századig az Iparművészeti Múzeum és a Szépművészeti Múzeum anyagából, ed. by É. S. Eszláry, É. S. Koroknay, exhibition catalogue, Budapest, 1978, no. 18.


Image

© Iparmûvészeti Múzeum (Museum of Applied Arts), Budapest.

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