The scenes on this coffret, drawn from stories of Alexander the Great, the legends of King Arthur, and other medieval tales, all attest to the power of love. The depiction of the unicorn on one end is indebted to a thirteenth-century French tale, the Bestiaire d'amour. A maiden holding a mirror has attracted a unicorn. As it lies peacefully in her lap, Love, in the guise of a skillful hunter, stabs it with a long spear.
3/4 Left (acc. no. 1988.16): four scenes, from left to right: Aristotle teaching Alexander, Phyllis riding Aristotle, the lion shredding the cloak of Thisbe, the suicide of Pyramus); (acc. no. 17.190.173a): three panels and bottom of casket; (acc. no. 17.190.173b): top panel of casket with the assault on the metaphorical fortress, Castle of Love, with a tournament and knights catapulting roses
This artwork is meant to be viewed from right to left. Scroll left to view more.
3/4 Left (acc. no. 1988.16): four scenes, from left to right: Aristotle teaching Alexander, Phyllis riding Aristotle, the lion shredding the cloak of Thisbe, the suicide of Pyramus); (acc. no. 17.190.173a): three panels and bottom of casket; (acc. no. 17.190.173b): top panel of casket with the assault on the metaphorical fortress, Castle of Love, with a tournament and knights catapulting roses
Front: Aristotle lectures Alexander the Great, Phyllis Rides Aristotle, the Lion rends the veil of Thisbe, and Thisbe kills herself on Pyramus
Side: a mounted knight saves a young woman from a wild man and a knight is welcomed to a castle
Back: Lancelot fights a Lion, Lancelot crosses the Sword Bridge, Gawain lays upon the Perilous Bed, the Three Maidens of La Roche de Canguin watch the Adventure of the Perilous Bed
Side: Tristan and Isolde see the reflection of King Mark in a fountain, and a maiden and hunter entrap a unicorn
Top
Artwork Details
Use your arrow keys to navigate the tabs below, and your tab key to choose an item
Credit Line:Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917; The Cloisters Collection, 1988
Accession Number:17.190.173a, b; 1988.16
This group of five ivory panels are the reassembled elements of a "composite casket," so called by scholars because the narrative scenes that adorn them are vignettes from a variety of popular stories and chivalric romances. The sides, top, and back panel came to the museum in 1917 as a part of the Morgan gift. The front had been removed from the box before entering the collection of Sir Francis Douce in the 18th century and was presumed lost. It was reunited with the rest of the box only after it appeared on the art market in 1988, at which time its nineteenth-century metal armature, likely added during its time in the Frédéric Spitzer Collection, was removed. With all the elements reunited, a complete picture of the box’s scenes can be appreciated. The front represents scenes from the stories of Pyramus and Thisbe and Aristotle and Phyllis. Scenes from Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart and Parceval, The Story of the Grail, both works by Chrétien de Troyes, adorn the back. One of the side panels shows a scene from the story of Tristan and Isolde, in which King Mark is spying on the lovers. Other scenes do not appear to be tethered to any romance in particular. The scene of Tristan and Isolde in their garden on one side of the box stands beside another in which a maiden and a hunter entrap a unicorn, a scene deriving ultimately from bestiaries. The other side represent a knight stabbing a wild man through the mouth, a scene common on ivory boxes but unknown from surviving literature of the period. The lid represents a joust between two representations of the siege of the Castle of Love, a scene with obvious erotic connotations but no literary precedent.
Narrative scenes with no apparent antecedent within written literature demonstrate the liberties that medieval ivory carvers took with their source material and suggest a more complex interaction between written, oral, and visual storytelling than modern audiences may expect. Indeed, as Paula Mae Carns has noted, the modern designation of composite caskets to describe such boxes pays tribute to the medieval literary practice of compilatio, a method of literary production in which authors gathered excerpts on a specific theme with the aim of presenting a summary of thinking on a particular subject. The current box, by presenting ancient exempla, fragments of literary romances, and purely visual metaphors for the course of love, represents an instance in which the artists served as compilers and, within medieval definitions, as literary storytellers in their own right. Like the author of a medieval compilatio, the carver responsible for the current box used editorial choices to emphasize or draw parallels between the moral overtones of various tales. The front of the box provides a telling example. In the scene on the left, Phyllis, the lover of Alexander the Great, tricks Aristotle into serving as a horse as a price for her affection. On the right, Pyramus and Thisbe planned to run away from home one evening, but tragedy strikes after Thisbe happens upon a lion at the rendezvous site and drops her veil. Pyramus, coming late to the site, finds the bloody veil and, believing Thisbe dead, stabs himself. Thisbe, coming upon her dead lover, kills herself on the same sword. Together, the two stories speak to the power of love to overcome reason and lead to disaster. Similarly, the pairing of the hunt for the unicorn and the spying of King Mark on Tristan and Isolde on one side suggest how love can lead to duplicity and destruction. Other scenes on the box suggest alternative views of the morality of love and call attention to love’s call to heroism and moral clarity.
Further Reading:
Paul Williamson and Glyn Davies, Medieval Ivory Carvings, 1200-1550, Part II (London: V&A Publishing, 2014), pp. 653-706.
Richard H. Randall Jr., "Popular Romances Carved in Ivory." In Images in Ivory: Precious Objects of the Gothic Age, edited by Peter Barnet (Detroit: Detroit Institute of Arts, 1997), pp. 62-79.
Paula Mae Carns, "Compilatio in Ivory: The Composite Casket in the Metropolitan Museum," Gesta 45, no. 2 (2005), pp. 69-88.
Catalogue Entry by Scott Miller, Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial and Research Collections Specialist, Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters, 2020–2022
Sir Francis Douce (British)[17.190.173a, b]; Sir Samuel Rush Meyrick[17.190.173a, b]; [ Frédéric Spitzer (Austrian), Paris (sold 1893) [17.190.173a, b]; his posthumous sale, Chevallier & Mannheim, Paris (April 17–June 16, 1893, no. 114); [ Bourgeois Frères, Cologne (from 1893) [17.190.173a, b]]; Baron Albert Oppenheim, Cologne(sold 1906) [17.190.173a, b]; J. Pierpont Morgan (American), London and New York (1906–1917) [17.190.173a, b]; Private Collection, Sevenoaks, Kent, England (sold 1987) [1988.16]; [ Parson, Welch, & Cowell, Sevenoaks, Kent (April 1, 1987, lot 26)] [1988.16]; [ Alain Moatti, Paris (sold 1988)] [1988.16]
Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux Arts de la Ville de Paris. "Exposition universelle de 1900. L'exposition retrospective de l'art francais," April 14–November 12, 1900.
New York. The Cloisters Museum & Gardens. "The Secular Spirit: Life and Art at the End of the Middle Ages," March 28–June 15, 1975.
McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College. "Memory and The Middle Ages," February 17–May 21, 1995.
Galeries nationales du Grand Palais. "L'art en France au temps de Philippe le Bel," March 17–June 30, 1998.
J. Paul Getty Museum. "Imagining the Past in France, 1250-1500," November 16, 2010–February 6, 2011.
New York. The Cloisters Museum & Gardens. "Search for the Unicorn: An Exhibition in Honor of The Cloisters' 75th Anniversary," May-14-Aug-18-2013.
Meyrick, Samuel Rush. "On Ancient Caskets of Ivory and Wood." The Gentleman's Magazine, n. s., 3, no. 157 (February 1835). no. IV, p. 200.
Meyrick, Samuel Rush. "Descriptive Catalogue of the Doucean Museum, now at Goodrich Court." The Gentleman's Magazine, n.s., 5, no. 159 (April 1836). no. 11, p. 383.
South Kensington Museum. A Description of the Ivories, Ancient & Mediaeval, in the South Kensington Museum, edited by William Maskell. London: Chapman & Hall, 1872. no. 7, pp. 176–77.
La Collection Spitzer: Antiquité, Moyen-Age, Renaissance. Vol. I. Mâcon: Imprimerie Protat Frères, 1890–1891. Ivoire 79, pp. 51–52.
Spitzer, Frédéric, ed. La Collection Spitzer: Antiquité -- Moyen-Age -- Renaissance. Vol. 1. Paris: Maison Quantin, 1890–1893. Ivoire 79, p. 52, pl. XXI.
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. 114, p. 22, pl. IV.
Marcou, Paul Frantz. "L'exposition rétrospective de l'art français: Les ivoires." Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 3rd ser., 23, no. 6 (June 1900). p. 488.
Migeon, Gaston. Exposition rétrospective de l'art français en 1900. Paris: Exposition universelle de 1900, 1900. p. 20.
Molinier, Emile. Collection du Baron Albert Oppenheim: Tableaux et objets d'art, catalogue précédé d'une introduction. Paris: Librairie Centrale des Beaux-Arts, 1904. no. 71, p. 32, pl. LIV.
The New York Times. "Mr. Morgan's Old Carvings." The New York Times (November 18, 1906). p. X4, ill. pictorial supplement "The Oppenheim–Morgan Collection".
Loomis, Roger Sherman. "A Medieval Ivory Casket." Art in America 5, no. 1 (December 1916). pp. 19–27, fig. 3.
Loomis, Roger Sherman. "A Phantom Tale of Female Ingratitude." Modern Philology 14, no. 12 (April 1917). pp. 750–55.
Koechlin, Raymond. "Quelques groupes d'ivoires français: le dieu d'Amour et le château d'Amour sur les valves de boîtes à miroir." Gazette des Beaux Arts, 5th ser., 63, no. 4 (1921). p. 295.
Koechlin, Raymond. Les Ivoires Gothiques Français: Volume I, Text. Paris: Editions Auguste Picard, 1924. no. 1284, pp. 409, 485, 489–491, 497, 505, 505.
Koechlin, Raymond. Les Ivoires Gothiques Français: Volume II, Catalogue. Paris: Editions Auguste Picard, 1924. no. 1284, p. 453.
Breck, Joseph, and Meyric R. Rogers. The Pierpont Morgan Wing: A Handbook. 1st ed. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1925. pp. 110–11.
Hoopes, Thomas T. "An Ivory Casket in the Metropolitan Museum of Art." The Art Bulletin 8, no. 3 (March 1926). pp. 127–39, fig. 1–6.
Breck, Joseph, and Meyric R. Rogers. The Pierpont Morgan Wing: A Handbook. 2nd ed. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1929. pp. 110–11.
Marle, Raimond van. Iconographie de l'art profane au Moyen-Age et à la Renaissance, et la décoration des demeures: Volume 2, Allégories et symboles. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1932. pp. 434–35 n. 2.
Loomis, Roger Sherman. Arthurian Legends in Medieval Art. London: Oxford University Press, 1938. pp. 66, 70, 72, 76, fig. 122, 137.
Scherer, Margaret R. About the Round Table. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1945. pp. 42–45, 54–55, 68–69.
Ross, David J. A. "Allegory and Romance on a Mediaeval French Marriage Casket." Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 11 (1948). pp. 129–30, 136–37, 139–40, fig. 31c, (as K. 1284).
Beigbeder, Olivier. "Les Héros Romanesques des Ivoires Médiévaux Français." Connaissance des Arts 84 (February 1959). pp. 30–31.
Nickel, Helmut. "Sir Gawayne and the Three White Knights." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, n.s., 28, no. 4 (December 1969). p. 176, fig. 6.
Nickel, Helmut. Warriors and Worthies: Arms and Armor Through the Ages. New York: Atheneum, 1969. p. 70, illus.
Locey, Michael. "La Chastelaine de Vergi." The Register of the Spencer Museum of Art 4, no. 2 (1970). p. 13.
Nickel, Helmut. "Arms and Armor." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, n.s., 32, no. 4 (1973-1974). pp. 76–77.
Baekeland, Frederick. "Two Kings of Symbolism in a Gothic Ivory Casket." The Psychoanalytic Study of Society 6 (1974). pp. 20–52, fig. 1–5.
Husband, Timothy B., and Jane Hayward, ed. The Secular Spirit: Life and Art at the End of the Middle Ages. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1975. no. 10, pp. 26–27.
Dodds, Jerrilynn D. "The Paintings in the Sala de Justicia of the Alhambra: Iconography and Iconology." The Art Bulletin 61, no. 2 (June 1979). pp. 191–95, fig. 8, 9, 11.
Wixom, William D. "Eleven Additions to the Medieval Collection." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 66, no. 3 (March-April 1979). pp. 115–16, fig. 60.
Husband, Timothy B. The Wild Man: Medieval Myth and Symbolism. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1980. no. 11, pp. 67–71, fig. 34, 35, 39.
Howard, Kathleen, ed. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1983. no. 35, p. 352.
Musée du Louvre: Nouvelles acquisitions du département des objets d'art, 1980–1984 (1985). p. 32.
Randall Jr., Richard H. Masterpieces of Ivory from the Walters Art Gallery. Walters Art Gallery, 1985. pp. 180–81, 187, 224, fig. 39.
Sale Catalogue. Sevenoaks, Kent: Parson, Welch, & Cowell, April 1, 1987. no. 26, pp. 8–9.
Metropolitan Museum of Art. Recent Acquisitions, 1987-1988 (Metropolitan Museum of Art) (1988). p. 16.
Metropolitan Museum of Art. "One Hundred Eighteenth Annual Report of the Trustees for the Fiscal Year July 1, 1987, through June 30, 1988." Annual Report of the Trustees of the Metropolitan Museum of Art 118 (1988). p. 33.
Howard, Kathleen, ed. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide. 2nd ed. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1994. no. 36, p. 386.
Bruckner, Matilda Tomaryn. "Reconstructing Arthurian History: Lancelot and the Vulgate Cycle." In Memory and the Middle Ages, edited by Nancy Netzer, and Virginia Reinburg. Chestnut Hill, Mass.: Boston College Museum of Art, 1995. pp. 66–67, fig. 25–27, ill. pp. 62–64.
Barnet, Peter, ed. Images In Ivory: Precious Objects of the Gothic Age. Detroit: Detroit Institute of Arts, 1997. p. 231.
Randall Jr., Richard H. "Popular Romances Carved in Ivory." In Images In Ivory: Precious Objects of the Gothic Age, edited by Peter Barnet. Detroit: Detroit Institute of Arts, 1997. p. 68, fig. V–3.
Avril, François, ed. L'art au temps des rois maudits: Philippe le Bel et ses fils, 1285-1328. Paris: Réunion des Musées Nationaux, 1998. no. 101, pp. 159, 165–66.
Rushing, James A. "Adventure in the Service of Love: Yvain on a Fourteenth-Century Ivory Panel." Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 61 (1998). pp. 59, 60, fig. 2.
Wixom, William D., ed. Mirror of the Medieval World. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1999. pp. 133–35.
Shoppe, Paula Mae. "Reading Romances: The Production and Reception of French Gothic Ivories in the Context of Late Medieval Literary Practices." PhD diss., University of Illinois, 2000. pp. 162–203.
Curschmann, Michael. "Volkssprache und Bildsprache." In Literatur und Wandmalerei: Volume 1, Erscheinungsformen höfischer Kultur und ihre Träger im Mittelalter. Freiburger Colloquium 1998, edited by Eckart Conrad Lutz, Johanna Thali, and René Wetzel. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 2002. pp. 26, 46, fig. 21.
Ott, Norbert H. "Literatur in Bildern: Eine Vorbemerkung und sieben Stichworte." In Literatur und Wandmalerei: Volume 1, Erscheinungsformen höfischer Kultur und ihre Träger im Mittelalter. Freiburger Colloquium 1998, edited by Eckart Conrad Lutz, Johanna Thali, and René Wetzel. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 2002. p. 165 n. 59.
Gaborit-Chopin, Danielle. "Aristote et les Roses: sur un Manche de Couteau du Musée du Louvre." In In Italiam nos fata trahunt, sequamur ... : sborník příspěvku k 75 narozeninám Olgu Pujmanové, edited by Petr Pribyl. Prague: Společnost Přátel Society of Friends, 2003. pp. 41–42, fig. 4.
Carns, Paula Mae. "Compilatio in Ivory: The Composite Casket in the Metropolitan Museum." Gesta 45, no. 2 (2005). pp. 69–88, fig. 1, 2, 4, 6, 10.
Norris, Michael. Medieval Art: A Resource for Educators. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2005. no. 28, pp. 112–15.
L'Estrange, Elizabeth. "Gazing at Gawain: Reconsidering Tournaments, Courtly Love, and the Lady Who Looks." Medieval Feminist Forum 45, no. 2 (2008). pp. 82, 83, 85, 94–95, fig. 4–5, 7.
Meuwese, Martine. "Chrétien in Ivory." In Arthurian Literature XXV, edited by Elizabeth Archibald, and David F. Johnson. Rochester, NY: Boydell and Brewer, 2008. pp. 128, 142, 150.
Carns, Paula Mae. "Cutting a Fine Figure: Costume on French Gothic Ivories." Medieval Clothing and Textiles 5 (2009). pp. 63 n. 21, 75 n. 63, 79 n. 81, 90.
Morrison, Elizabeth Dr., and Anne D. Hedeman. Imagining the Past in France: History in Manuscript Painting, 1250-1500. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2010. no. 55, pp. 281–83.
Carns, Paula Mae. "A Curious Collection in Ivory: The Lord Gort Casket." In Collections in Context: the Organization of Knowledge and Community in Europe, edited by Karen L. Fresco, and Anne D. Hedeman. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2012. pp. 246–74.
Curschmann, Michael. "From Myth to Emblem to Panorama." In Visuality and Materiality in the Story of Tristan and Isolde, edited by Jutta Eming, Ann Marie Rasmussen, and Kathryn Starkey. Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 2012. pp. 109–111, fig. 5.2.
Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012. p. 192, (discussed with 1988.16).
Williamson, Paul, and Glyn Davies. Medieval Ivory Carvings, 1200–1550. Vol. 2. London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 2014. pp. 657, 663.
Stein, Wendy A. How to Read Medieval Art. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2016. no. 35, pp. 16, 122–23, 131, fig. 27, ill. back cover.
Ciseri, Ilaria, ed. Gli avori del Museo nazionale del Bargello. Milan: Museo Nazionale del Bargello, 2018. pp. 283–6.
Boehm, Barbara Drake. "A Blessing of Unicorns: The Paris and Cloisters Tapestries." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 78, no. 1 (Summer 2020). p. 33, fig. 31.
The Met's Libraries and Research Centers provide unparalleled resources for research and welcome an international community of students and scholars.
The Met Collection API is where all makers, creators, researchers, and dreamers can connect to the most up-to-date data and public domain images for The Met collection. Open Access data and public domain images are available for unrestricted commercial and noncommercial use without permission or fee.
Feedback
We continue to research and examine historical and cultural context for objects in The Met collection. If you have comments or questions about this object record, please complete and submit this form. The Museum looks forward to receiving your comments.
The Museum's collection of medieval and Byzantine art is among the most comprehensive in the world, encompassing the art of the Mediterranean and Europe from the fall of Rome to the beginning of the Renaissance.
