MIRROR CASE
Mirror cases are exquisite treasures of the Middle Ages. The decorative pictorial fields mostly feature profane courtly scenes with courting couples, hunting or games sceneries, making a reference to the Middle Age ideal of the ‘Hohe Minne’. These objects were probably expensive presents, given to family or friends on the occasion of an engagement or a wedding.
France (Paris?) Circa 1310 –1320 Ivory Height: 10 cm, width: 9.5 cm Provenance: Collection Charles Gillot (1853 –1903), Paris; By descent until 2008.
Our mirror case also belongs to this tradition. The image area is divided into four compartments by a tree and its outgoing branches. Two smaller trees border the sides. We can see loving couples in all four areas. Clockwise: a woman who is giving a crown to her lover, followed by a young man who caresses his beloved by touching her chin. Below, a young man is kneeling in front to the woman he admires and is giving her a rose taken from the rose tree, while she is making a flower wreath. Next to that scene, a couple plays chess at a table. Four mythological creatures decorate the object’s outer edges.
Literature: Koechlin, Raymond. Les Ivoires Gothiques français, Paris 1924, vol. II, cat. no. 1012, pp. 372/373. Related Literature: Gaborin-Chopin, Danielle. Ivoires médiévaux V e – XV e siècle, Musée du Louvre, Départment des Objets d’Art, Paris, 2003, cat. no. 129, pp. 354 – 356. Exhibition: Exposition rétrospective de l’art français des origines à 1800, Petit Palais, Paris, 1900, cat. no. 181.
The high quality carving of the faces and clothes suggests that the mirror case had been made in a Paris workshop circa 1310 –1320. There are two comparable mirror cases with courtly scenes in the Louvre in Paris (fig. 1)1, also dated circa 1310 –1320, and one in the Musée de Cluny (fig. 2). Raymond Koechlin cites only ten mirror cases with four divided decorated areas.2 Danielle Gaborit-Chopin completes this group by another four works .3 The scene of loving couples playing chess is a very rare one.
02
20
1
Gaborin-Chopin, op. cit., no. 129, p. 354 ff
2
Koechlin, op. cit., vol. II, p. 382, cat. no. 1007 – 1015
3
Gaborin-Chopin, op. cit., p. 356
