Inv. 71.283B
Sliding lid: courting couple (meeting of lovers); youth chucking his lover under the chin; lady holding a dog; fashionable dress; couple in the background; youth with a hawk on his wrist; walled city; ladies on the city walls.
Ann Arbor 1975: French, last quarter of the 14th century.
Randall 1985: North French (?), 3rd quarter of the 14th century. Attributed to the Atelier of the Boxes.
Detroit 1997 and Museum's opinion 2010: North French, 1340-1360.
Attribution
Atelier of the Boxes (Randall 1985)
Reverse
Recessed with a raised border on three sides. The inner surface of the cover was originally divided into 5 compartments, the centre one circular possibly for a mirror, the others formed by four raised bands at right angles to each other, all have now been cut away, leaving the surface smooth.
Object Condition
In the centre at the top of the lid, hole for a cord, now plugged.
Comments
The box is 3/16 inches deep, its original use is not known. The inside of the box is a sunken receptacle; the inner surface of the cover was originally divided into five compartments, the centre one circular possibly for a mirror, the others formed by four raised bands at right angles to each other, all have now been cut away, leaving the surface smooth.
Provenance
Sold, Cologne, 14 December 1893, lot 92. Marcus Antocolsky collection, Paris: sold, Antocolsky sale, Drouot, 10 June 1901, lot 73. Collection of George Robinson Harding, London; bought, London, 15 June 1901, by Henry Walters; Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.
Bibliography
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), II, p. 420 (in relation to no. 1181 and 1182).
The International Style: The Arts of Europe around 1400, ed. by P. Verdier, exhibition catalogue, Baltimore, Walters Art Gallery, 1962, no. 111.
Images of Love and Death in Renaissance and Late Medieval Art, exhibition catalogue, ed. by W. R. Levin, Ann Harbor, University of Michigan, November 1975-January 1976, no. 75, pl. VI.
R. H. Randall, Masterpieces of Ivory from the Walters Art Gallery (New York, 1985), no. 339.
R. H. Randall, 'Medieval Ivories in the Romance tradition', in Gesta 28 (1989), pp. 30-40.
P. Jolly, 'Crosscurrents in the Mid-Trecento French Medieval Ivories and the Camposanto, Pisa', in Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 118 (November 1991), pp. 161-170 (p. 165).
Images in Ivory. Precious Objects of the Gothic Age, ed. by Peter Barnet, exhibition catalogue, Detroit, The Detroit Institute of Arts, and Baltimore, The Walters Art Gallery, 1997, p. 76, fig. V-7.
J. Warren, Medieval and Renaissance Sculpture in the Ashmolean Museum, 3 vols (Oxford, 2014), Vol. 2: Sculptures in Stone, Clay, Ivory, Bone and Wood, pp. 589-90, in relation to no. 176.
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