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Portable writing case (écritoire portative) (Side 1)

Portable writing case (écritoire portative) (Side 1)
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Side 2

Side

Side 2

Subject
Secular. Religious. Courtly love.

Repository Institution
www.ville-ge.ch

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Geneva, Musée d'art et d'histoire

AD 5794

Ivory;string

Height: 105mm
Width: 58mm
Depth: 27-30mm

Side 1: Courting couple (meeting of lovers); lady crowning her standing lover with a chaplet.
Lid: hybrid.
Side 2: couple embracing; youth with a hawk on his wrist; lady holding a dog.
Lid: hybrid.
Top: Christ; cherubs (angels).
Rosettes in the spandrels.

Conservateurs 1987: Northern France, 14th century.
Piano 2007: France, c. 1300-1330.
Museum's opinion 2011: French (Ile-de-France), 1st quarter of the 14th century.


Attribution
Unknown

Polychromy - Gilding
Traces of black and red on the hybrids.

Reverse
Carved on both sides.

Comments
The figure of Christ, according to Piano, was added later (Piano 2007).

Provenance
Sotheby's, London, 12 December 1982 or 1985, lot 264: bought by the Museum.

Bibliography
Conservateurs des Musées d'art et d'histoire, 'Acquisitions du Musée d'art et d'histoire en 1986', in Genava, n.s., XXXV (1987), pp. 207-277 (p. 251, fig. 95).
N. Piano, 'La Collection d'ivoires médiévaux du musée d'art et d'histoire de Genève', in Genava LV (2007), pp. 127-157 (pp. 147-148, no. 1).


Image

© Musée d'art et d'histoire, Ville de Genève, inv. no. AD 5794. Photo: Olivier Zimmermann.

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