Lot Essay
The present ivory mirror case is a characteristic Parisian production of the first or second quarter of the 14th century. As a rule Gothic mirror-cases, which represent a rare instance of works of art whose recipients must in the main have been female, were decorated with the same kind of secular and amorous subject-matter as is found in the vernacular lyric poetry and romances of contemporary troubadours and trouvères.
The present example is extremely unusual in being decorated with a scene of the Fountain of Youth. The lower half shows a group of aged people, identified as such by their beards, wimples, crutches, and wizened expressions, approaching the Fountain. Some are unable to make their way on foot, and are being pulled along in a cart. Up above on the right, they approach the Fountain in attitudes of supplication, take off their clothes, bathe in its waters, and emerge rejuvenated on the left.
The Fountain of Youth is an important theme in the secular iconography of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, and is common in the literature of the period as in the visual arts. The most celebrated monumental representation of it is in a painting by Lucas Cranach the Elder now in the Dahlem Museum in Berlin. The theme was popular among Parisian ivory carvers of the 14th century, and is mostly found on caskets and occasionally on combs. There appears, however, to be only one other surviving representation of it on a mirror-case, although its appropriateness for such a context is self-evident. The other piece, formerly in the Stroganoff Collection (Koechlin, loc. cit., Rapp, op. cit., pp. 51-3, 121-2, no. 2, illustrated), contains many of the same motifs, but combines them with a depiction of the Castle of Love. It lacks the bold rosette-bedecked central structure of the present example, and also especially the figure undressing seen from the back, and the bathers showered with water, one of whom wipes it from their eyes. Indeed, none of the other ivories attains anything like this level of exuberant realism, and the rope-like strands of water appear to be similarly unique.
The present example is extremely unusual in being decorated with a scene of the Fountain of Youth. The lower half shows a group of aged people, identified as such by their beards, wimples, crutches, and wizened expressions, approaching the Fountain. Some are unable to make their way on foot, and are being pulled along in a cart. Up above on the right, they approach the Fountain in attitudes of supplication, take off their clothes, bathe in its waters, and emerge rejuvenated on the left.
The Fountain of Youth is an important theme in the secular iconography of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, and is common in the literature of the period as in the visual arts. The most celebrated monumental representation of it is in a painting by Lucas Cranach the Elder now in the Dahlem Museum in Berlin. The theme was popular among Parisian ivory carvers of the 14th century, and is mostly found on caskets and occasionally on combs. There appears, however, to be only one other surviving representation of it on a mirror-case, although its appropriateness for such a context is self-evident. The other piece, formerly in the Stroganoff Collection (Koechlin, loc. cit., Rapp, op. cit., pp. 51-3, 121-2, no. 2, illustrated), contains many of the same motifs, but combines them with a depiction of the Castle of Love. It lacks the bold rosette-bedecked central structure of the present example, and also especially the figure undressing seen from the back, and the bathers showered with water, one of whom wipes it from their eyes. Indeed, none of the other ivories attains anything like this level of exuberant realism, and the rope-like strands of water appear to be similarly unique.