IVORY CARVINGS 61 



all probably of fifteenth-century Italian workmanship, and 

 in each of them appears the favourite design of St. George 

 and the Dragon, accompanied by figures of lovers in gardens, 

 and similar secular subjects, such as a group of musicians, a 

 lady playing on a small organ, etc.* 



From the hand of an Italian ivory carver of the end of the 

 fourteenth or the beginning of the fifteenth century we have 

 a coffret of hexagonal form decorated with classical subjects. 

 The coffret proper rests on a base of marqueterie and col- 

 oured woods, mouldings of similar material surmounting it, 

 tapering up in a pyramidal form to a six-sided button on 

 which is a brass ring. The six compartments of the coffret 

 present scenes from the story of Paris. As an infant, in the 

 first, his mother Hecuba is about to put him to death to 

 conjure the ruin of Troy predicted by the sybil Herophile, 

 but Priam prevents her from doing so; then we have Paris 

 exposed on Mount Ida by the shepherd Agalaus to whom he 

 has been consigned. In his intentional abandonment here 

 the luckless babe is nourished by a she-bear (third com- 

 partment) and finally Agalaus takes pity on him and adopts 

 him. The fourth compartment figures Paris holding in his 

 hands a crown awarded him by the shepherd for his courage 

 and coldness; the fifth and sixth compartments figure the 

 Judgment of Paris, to decide the dispute of Juno, Minerva, 

 and Venus as to their respective merits, f 



What is in the opinion of one of the best art critics in this 

 department of art a work of superlative excellence is a 

 triptych in the Louvre Collection, of Florentine workman- 

 ship and belonging to the last half of the fifteenth century. 



* Julius von Schlosser, "Elfenbeinsattel des ausgehenden Mittelaltars," in Jahrbuch der 

 Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des allerhbchsten Kaiserhauses, Vol. XV, pp. 260 sqq., 

 Wien 1894, figured in pp. 268, 269. They are also figiu-ed in F. Romer " Mitteilungen d. 

 K. K. Central Commission," Vol. X, 1865, pp. 1 sqq.. Figs. 5-7. 



fMusee National du Louvre; "Catalogue des Ivoires," par Emile Molinier, Paris [1895-6], 

 pp. 209-213. 



