English: Ivory mirror case with knight and a lady playing chess

1300-25
France, Paris
Ivory

The game of chess represented both love and war in the Middle Ages and the contest is mentioned in many of the romances of the period, including the story of Tristan and Iseult. It appears on caskets, combs, plaques and mirror covers throughout the fourteenth century in both France and Germany, and the three finest examples, of which this object is one, appear to come from the same Paris atelier, and perhaps from the hand of the same carver. The two other objects are in The Cleveland Museum of Art (J.H. Wade Fund 40.1200) and the Mus�e du Louvre (Koechlin 1924, 2: no.1053). In the Cleveland example, which is missing its corner terminals, the lady points to the chessboard rather than raising her hand in surprise, and in the Louvre example two witnesses have been added in the background, but all other details are perceptibly the same. The carver, whose composition was nearly perfect, amused himself in different mirror cases with portraying variant reactions to the game and making slight changes in the costume and the curtains.