The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of March 28, 2024

Set of Three Panels from a Casket with Scenes from Courtly Romances

Set of Three Panels from a Casket with Scenes from Courtly Romances

c. 1330–50
Overall: 13 x 26.2 x 1 cm (5 1/8 x 10 5/16 x 3/8 in.)

Did You Know?

In the center panel 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 panels shown here come from such a casket. The largest panel (center) 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. The two side panels depict other scenes such as the fountain of youth, 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, aristocratic clientele.
  • before 1897
    Trivulzio, Milan, Italy
    before 1933
    Robert von Hirsch, Frankfurt, Germany and Basel, Switzerland
    1978
    (Sale, Sotheby Parke Bernet, London, 22 June 1978, no. 290)
    1978-
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
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  • {{cite web|title=Set of Three Panels from a Casket with Scenes from Courtly Romances|url=false|author=|year=c. 1330–50|access-date=28 March 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

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