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Artwork Details
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Title:Mirror Case with Lovers
Date:second quarter 14th century
Culture:French
Medium:Elephant ivory
Dimensions:Overall: 3 5/16 x 3 3/8 x 5/16in. (8.4 x 8.5 x 0.8cm)
Classification:Ivories-Elephant
Credit Line:Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Maxime L. Hermanos, 1979
Object Number:1979.521.1
This mirror cover takes the form of a disk surrounded by four grotesque creatures. A spikey cross-shaped tree divides the central roundel on the exterior into four scenes, each of which depicts a pair of lovers. At the top left, a woman holding a rabbit crowns a man who holds a falcon. The scene on the top right shows a man kneeling before a woman in a gesture of pleading or oath-taking. The woman crowns him, suggesting that his suit or oath has been accepted. On the lower left, a man with a falcon and a woman with a small animal, perhaps a dog or a marten, sit and converse. On the lower right, a man approaches a woman and touches her chin while the woman raises her hand in a gesture of speech.
The mirror cover is in good condition, with no visible breaks or areas of loss. The ivory has darkened into a caramel-brown color with patches of dark greenish-brown. The interior of the case features a circular recess surrounded by a raised rim. The recess once formed the ground for a now-lost mirror but currently features markings and a sticker added by a collector. The cover’s rim is fitted with a notch and groove, forming one half of a bayonet mount. When first made, a tab in a matching, now-lost cover would slide into this hole and rotated, providing a complete surround for a delicate mirror of mercury-lined glass or metal.
The carved scenes on this mirror case are a variation of an iconography common on Parisian mirror cases of the fourteenth century, namely scenes of courting couples. Contemporary mirror cases frequently represent two or four scenes and deploy a tree to divide them. The rigid, cross-like boughs that terminate in flared, palm-like fronds are however at variance to the curvilinear rendering of trees typical of Parisian ateliers. This peculiar tree may be associated with a similarly cross-like vegetal divider on a mirror case in the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore (Inv. no. 71.168). Another in the collection of the Princeton Museum of Art (inv. no. 54-61) shares the palm-like fronds of the mirror backs in The Met and the Walters, suggesting that they originate in the same workshop. The significance of this motif is unclear. While most surviving mirror cases of the fourteenth century avoid overtly religious imagery, inventories of French royal collections suggest Christian symbols and religious figures were once abundant, especially on mirror cases made of precious metals. It is therefore possible that the tree was in fact meant to suggest a cross.
Further Reading:
Richard H. Randall, Jr. et al, Masterpieces of Ivory from the Walters Art Gallery (New York: Hudson Hills Press, 1985), p. 226.
Richard H. Randall, Jr., The Golden Age of Ivory: Gothic Ivory Carvings in North American Collections (New York: Hudson Hills Press, 1993), pp. 26-27.
Paul Williamson and Glyn Davies, Medieval Ivory Carvings: 1200-1550, Part 2 (London: Victoria and Albert Museum Press, 2014), pp. 561-606.
Catalogue Entry by Scott Miller, Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial and Research Collections Specialist, Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters, 2020–2022
[ Frédéric Spitzer (Austrian), Paris (sold 1893)]; his posthumous sale, Chevallier & Mannheim, Paris (April 17–June 16, 1893, no. 47); R. Duseigneur, Paris (from 1893); Dmitri Schevitch, Paris (sold 1906); his sale, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris (April 4–7, 1906, no. 154); Claudius Côte, Lyon, France (in 1906); Mr. and Mrs. Maxime Levy Hermanos, Paris and New York (until 1979)
Neuberger Museum of Art, State University of New York at Purchase. "The Medieval Animal: Abstraction or Reality?," February 5–1985.
Yokohama Museum of Art. "Treasures from The Metropolitan Museum of Art: French Art from the Middle Ages to the Twentieth Century," March 25–June 4, 1989.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Mirror of the Medieval World," March 9–June 1, 1999.
La Collection Spitzer: Antiquité, Moyen-Age, Renaissance. Vol. I. Mâcon: Imprimerie Protat Frères, 1890–1891.
Spitzer, Frédéric, ed. La Collection Spitzer: Antiquité -- Moyen-Age -- Renaissance. Vol. 1. Paris: Maison Quantin, 1890–1893. Ivoire 62, p. 48.
Catalogue des objets d'art et de haute curiosité: antiques, du moyen-âge & de la renaissance: composant l'importante et précieuse Collection Spitzer. Vol. 1. Paris: Chevallier and Mannheim, April 17–June 16, 1893. no. 97, p. 19, pl. III.
"La Collection de M. Claudius Côte." Les Arts 5, no. 59 (November 1906). p. 31, ill.
Molinier, Emile, ed. Catalogue des Objets d'Art et de Haute Curiosité de l'Antiquité du Moyen-Age et de la Renaissance: Collection de M. D. Schevitch. Paris: Galerie Georges Petit, April 4–6, 1906. no. 154.
Koechlin, Raymond. Les Ivoires Gothiques Français: Volume I, Text. Paris: Editions Auguste Picard, 1924. pp. 380 n. 2, 382 n. 2.
Koechlin, Raymond. Les Ivoires Gothiques Français: Volume II, Catalogue. Paris: Editions Auguste Picard, 1924. no. 1015, pp. 373–74.
Wixom, William D. "Curatorial Reports and Departmental Accessions." Annual Report of the Trustees of the Metropolitan Museum of Art 110 (July 1, 1979–June 30, 1980). p. 42.
Randall Jr., Richard H. Masterpieces of Ivory from the Walters Art Gallery. Walters Art Gallery, 1985. p. 224.
Sutton, Denys, ed. Treasures from the Metropolitan Museum of Art: French Art from the Middle Ages to the Twentieth Century. Yokohama: Yokohama Museum of Art, 1989. no. 18, pp. 72–73, ill.
Wixom, William D., ed. Mirror of the Medieval World. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1999. no. 161, p. 137.
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