Gothic Ivories Project | Comb (peigne double), 6 arches across (Side 2)

Life of saint Eustace.
Side 1: Hunting scene; saint Eustace on horseback blowing a horn; dog pursuing a stag. Vision of saint Eustace; saint Eustace kneeling; head of Christ between the stag's antlers; trees.
Side 2: Christ appears in a dream to Eustace's wife and again to Eustace; the sea voyage of saint Eustace and his family; the captain of the boat leaving with Eustace's wife (Theospita or Theopista) by way of payment for the journey; Eustace and his sons stand on the bank.
Foliated decoration and hybrids; masks in the spandrels.

Koechlin 1924: France, mid-14th century.
Mallé 1969: France (?), end of 14th century.
Vitali 1976: France, 2nd half of the 14th century.
Paris 2009 and Museum's opinion 2010: Paris, 1330-1350.
Tomasi 2012: French (Paris?), mid or 3rd quarter of the 14th century.

Attribution
Unknown

Comments
Known between ca. 1950 and 1987 as Inv. 91.

Provenance
Probably from the dukes of Savoy collections. Museo Egizio/Museo di Antichità, Turin (from at least 1832): given as part of an exchange of pieces with the Museo Civico in 1871.

Bibliography
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, pp. 426, 427; II, no. 1149; III, pl. CXCII.
L. Mallé, Smalti-Avori. Museo d'Arte Antica (Turin, 1969), p. 299, pl. 133-134 (as Inv. 91).
L. Vitali, Avori gotici francesi (Milan, 1976), no. 32.
Giacomo Jaquerio e il Gotico Internazionale in Piemonte, ed. by E. Castelnuovo, G. Romano, exhibition catalogue, Turin, Palazzo Madama, 1979, pp. 288-289, pl. 57.
Le Bain et le miroir. Soins du corps et cosmétiques de l'Antiquité à la Renaissance, ed. by I. Bardiès- Fronty, M. Bimbenet-Privat, P. Walter, exhibition catalogue, Paris, Musée de Cluny (Musée national du Moyen Âge), and Musée national de la Renaissance (Château d'Ecouen), 20 May - 21 September 2009, no. Cl 154.
M. Tomasi, 'Note su due avori gotici del Museo Civico d'Arte Antica', in Palazzo Madama. Studi e notizie, year III, no. 2 (2012-2013), pp. 16-27.
P. Williamson and G. Davies, Medieval Ivory Carvings 1200-1550 (London, 2014), in relation to no. 250.

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