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Source 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 <em>Roman de la Rose</em> 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.
Scholar Source Context
Document identity
localId
149380
label
Panel from a Casket with Scenes from Courtly Romances
core
obj
dtoType
object
pageCount
1
Source metadata
id
149380
contentType
object
title
Panel from a Casket with Scenes from Courtly Romances
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 <em>Roman de la Rose</em> 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.
date
c. 1330–50 or later
rights
CC0
rightsUri
CC0
language
en
wikidata
Q60779154
genreSpecific
Ivory
imageCount
1
source
import
dimensionsRaw
Overall: 13 x 26.2 x 1 cm (5 1/8 x 10 5/16 x 3/8 in.)
cul
France, Lorraine?, Gothic period, 14th century
accession
1978.39.a
Source extras
tec
ivory
tombstone
Panel from a Casket with Scenes from Courtly Romances, c. 1330–50 or later. France, Lorraine?, Gothic period, 14th century. Ivory; overall: 13 x 26.2 x 1 cm (5 1/8 x 10 5/16 x 3/8 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, John L. Severance Fund, 1978.39.a
collection
MED - Gothic
didYouKnow
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.
citations
citation
Wixom, William D. "Eleven Additions to the Medieval Collection." <em>The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art</em> 66, no. 3 (1979).
page_number
p. 87-151
url
www.jstor.org/stable/25159622
citation
Cleveland Museum of Art, and Barbara A. Kathman. <em>A Cleveland Bestiary</em>. 1981.
page_number
pp. 2 & ad, cat. no. 6
citation
Martin Nagy, Rebecca. Textiles in Daily Life in the Middle Ages. Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland Museum of Art in cooperation with Indiana University Press, 1985.
page_number
p. 60, repr. p. 48
citation
Brown University, and David Winton Bell Gallery (Brown University).<em> Survival of the Gods: Classical Mythology in Medieval Art</em> : 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.
page_number
pp. 64-5, cat. no. 20
citation
Wixom, William. "A Glimpse at the Fountains of the Middle Ages." <em>Cleveland Studies in the History of Art </em>8 (2003): 6-23.
page_number
Mentioned and reproduced: P. 17
citation
Cleveland Museum of Art, and Holger A. Klein.<em> Sacred Gifts and Worldly Treasures: Medieval Masterworks from the Cleveland Museum of Art. </em>Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2007.
page_number
Mentioned and reproduced: P. 188-189, no. 67
citation
Kopp, V. & E. Lapina, "Games and Visual Culture in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance". <em>Studies in the History of Daily Life (800-1600) V</em>olume 8, Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2020.
page_number
pp. 226-28
creditline
John L. Severance Fund
updatedAt
2026-05-29 07:41:18.935000
sourceId
149380
dept
Medieval Art
coll
MED - Gothic
med
ivory
thumbnail_url
image_url
Single page context
seq
1
pageIndex
0
type
photo
mediaId
7b42a77582fec46a