The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of April 25, 2024

Panel from a Casket with Scenes from Courtly Romances

Panel from a Casket with Scenes from Courtly Romances

c. 1330–50 or later
ivory
Overall: 13 x 26.2 x 1 cm (5 1/8 x 10 5/16 x 3/8 in.)
John L. Severance Fund 1978.39.a
Location: 106C Medieval Treasury

Did You Know?

Two knights in mail surcoats and helms joust here with blunted lances "for courtesy," a version of the joust known as the Joust of Peace.

Description

Among the most lavish and deluxe products of French ivory workshops of the 1300s were large caskets carved with elaborate scenes drawn from courtly romances. The panel shown here comes from such a casket. The largest panel (here) once formed the lid and depicts a tournament, the most splendid and romantic of knightly activities. Just to the right is a favorite allegory of chivalric love: knights assaulting the castle of love. These images suggesting chivalry, fertility, virginity, youth, and an idealized courtly love likely derive from manuscripts including the Roman de la Rose and the poems of Chrétien de Troyes. Such texts were often found within the libraries of the aristocracy, so the casket’s symbolic images would have been readily understood. Such caskets may have originally been gifts between a man and a woman. The expense of the material, ivory, suggests they were produced for an elite, aristocratic clientele.
  • Trivulzio, Milan (before 1897); Robert von Hirsch, Frankfurt (until 1933) and Basel (sale, Sotheby Parke Bernet, London, 22 June 1978, no. 290).
  • Wixom, William D. "Eleven Additions to the Medieval Collection." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 66, no. 3 (1979). p. 87-151 25159622
    Cleveland Museum of Art, and Barbara A. Kathman. A Cleveland Bestiary. 1981. pp. 2 & ad, cat. no. 6
    Martin Nagy, Rebecca. Textiles in Daily Life in the Middle Ages. Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland Museum of Art in cooperation with Indiana University Press, 1985. p. 60, repr. p. 48
    Brown University, and David Winton Bell Gallery (Brown University). Survival of the Gods: Classical Mythology in Medieval Art : an Exhibition by the Department of Art, Brown University, Bell Gallery, List Art Center, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, February 28-March 29, 1987. Providence, R.I.: The Department, 1987. pp. 64-5, cat. no. 20
    Wixom, William. "A Glimpse at the Fountains of the Middle Ages." Cleveland Studies in the History of Art 8 (2003): 6-23. Mentioned and reproduced: P. 17 www.jstor.org
    Cleveland Museum of Art, and Holger A. Klein. Sacred Gifts and Worldly Treasures: Medieval Masterworks from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2007. Mentioned and reproduced: P. 188-189, no. 67
    Kopp, V. & E. Lapina, "Games and Visual Culture in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance". Studies in the History of Daily Life (800-1600) Volume 8, Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2020. pp. 226-28
  • Sacred Gifts and Worldly Treasures: Medieval Masterworks from the Cleveland Museum of Art. National Museum of Bavaria, Munich, Germany (May 10-September 16, 2007); J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA (October 30, 2007-January 20, 2008); Frist Art Museum, Nashville, TN (February 13-June 7, 2009).
    Images of the Mind, Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (July 7-August 23, 1987).
    Survival of the Gods: Classical Mythology in Medieval Art, Brown University Bell Gallery, Providence, Rhode Island, (February 28-March 29, 1987).
    Textiles in Daily Life in the Middle Ages. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 22-March 17, 1985).
    A Cleveland Bestiary, The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH, (October 14-December 9, 1981).
    Year in Review 1978, The Cleveland Museum of Art, (1979).
  • {{cite web|title=Panel from a Casket with Scenes from Courtly Romances|url=false|author=|year=c. 1330–50 or later|access-date=25 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1978.39.a