The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 13, 2025

Panel from a Casket with Scenes from Courtly Romances

1330

France, Lorraine?, Gothic period, 14th century

ivory
Overall: 9.7 x 25.9 x 0.8 cm (3 13/16 x 10 3/16 x 5/16 in.)
John L. Severance Fund 1978.39.c
Location: 106C Medieval Treasury

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. This panel shown here comes from such a casket. This side panel depicts scenes such as Sir Gawain and the Lion and Lancelot crossing the sword bridge. 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 clientele.
  • Trivulzio, Milan (before 1897); Robert von Hirsch, Frankfurt (until 1933) and Basel (sale, Sotheby Parke Bernet, London, 22 June 1978, no. 290).
  • 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. 48, 60
    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
    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
  • 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).
    Textiles in Daily Life in the Middle Ages. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 22-March 17, 1985).
  • {{cite web|title=Panel from a Casket with Scenes from Courtly Romances|url=false|author=|year=1330|access-date=13 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

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