Gothic Ivories Project | Comb (peigne double) (Side 1)

Side 1: Judgement of Solomon; trees.
Side 2: Two young men argue over the inheritance of a recently deceased man; the king (sometimes identified as king Solomon) orders them to shoot arrows to the shrouded corpse and only the 'false' son complies.

Berliner 1926 and Swoboda 1963: Italy, 2nd half of the 14th century.
Thinesse 1977: Italy, c. 1380.
Tirol 2007 and Munich 2010: Italy, 2nd half of the 14th century.

Attribution
Unknown

Polychromy - Gilding
Extensive traces of polychromy: red (trees, robes).

Reverse
Carved in both sides.

Comments
On the iconography of side 2, see: W. Stechow, 'Shooting at Father’s Corpse: a Note on the Hazards of Iconography', in Art Bulletin 37 (1955), pp. 55-56.

Provenance
Acquired in 1858 on the Munich art market.

Bibliography
Das Mittelalter. II, Gotische Alterthümer der Baukunst und Bildnerei, by H. Graf, G. Hager and J. A. Mayer (Munich, 1896), VI, no. 1394, pl. XXIX.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, p. 430 n. 2.
R. Berliner, Die Bildwerke des Bayerischen Nationalmuseums, IV. Die Bildwerke in Elfenbein, Knochen, Hirsch- und Steinbockhorn, mit einem Anhange: Elfenbeinarbeiten der Staatlichen Schlossmuseen in Bayern (Augsburg, 1926), no. 72.
F. Swoboda, Die liturgischen Kämme. Unpublished PhD thesis, Tübingen, 1963 (Typescript), pp. 155-156, no. 65.
J. Thinesse, Appendix zum Elfenbeinkatalog Rudolf Berliners, unpublished MA dissertation, Munich, 1977 (Typescript), p. 42.
Schmuck und Gerät aus 'Bein'. Vom Eiszeitalter bis zur Gegenwart, exhibition catalogue, Munich, Prähistorischen Staatssammlung, 7 February-13 April 1997, pp. 194-195, no. 14 (R. Kahsnitz).
Margarete Gräfin von Tirol, exhibition catalogue, Tirol, Landesmuseum Schloss Tirol, 30 June 2007 - 19 November 2007, pp. 53-54, no. 4.13 (P. Dinzelbacher).
Mittelalterliche Elfenbeinarbeiten: ausgewählte Werke aus den Beständen des Bayerischen Nationalmuseums, ed. by R. Eikelmann, M. Weniger and C. Melzer, exhibition catalogue, Munich, Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, 2010, no. 28.

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