IVORY CARVINGS 65 



family. When, later, expert examination revealed that the 

 shield was a modern forgery, the collector, Mr. Craig- 

 Brown, had recourse to legal action and succeeded in recover- 

 ing the amount of the purchase money. Not long after this 

 the same collector saw in Brussels, in one of the leading 

 establishments for the sale of art objects, an exact copy, or 

 replica, of the work he had rejected, the price being the same, 

 £400. As an example of the value of medieval or Renais- 

 sance ivories, the " Vierge de Boubon," one of the rare figures 

 of the Virgin of the type called by the French " Vierges Ou- 

 vertes," was sold at auction in 1903, as part of the collection 

 of Sir Thomas Gibson-Carmichael, at Christie's in London, 

 for the sum of £3,800, or about $19,000.* This is by some 

 experts believed to be the only genuine specimen of its kind. 



One of these strange ivory statuettes named "Vierges 

 Ouvertes" is listed in an inventory of the church treasure of 

 Notre Dame de Paris, made in 1348. It is there described 

 as "an ivory image of great antiquity, divided in the middle, 

 and with sculptured images in the opening; it is generally 

 placed on the high altar, "f In this peculiar type of ivory 

 the figure of the Virgin is longitudinally divided from top 

 to bottom, so that the two halves can be opened out, forming 

 two leaves of a triptych, the inner parts being carved with 

 designs in harmony with those offered by the centre leaf, 

 revealed when the figure is opened out. 



The remarkably fine collection of ivories in the Griine 

 Gewolbe at Dresden was founded by Elector Augustus of 

 Saxony (1553-1586), who was not only a great connoisseur 

 but did some turning work in ivory himself. To gratify his 



*Alfred Maskell "Ivory, in Commerce and in the Arts," Cantor Lectxires; in Journal 

 of the Society of Arts, Vol. LIV, No. 2817, p. 1178; November 16, 1906, and the same 

 writer's "Ivories," London, 1905, p. 175, PI. xx. 



t Jules Labarte, " Histoire des arts industriels au Moyen Age et k I'epoque de la Ren- 

 aissance," Vol. I, Paris, 1864, p. 234; from Comptes des ornements et meubles de I'Eglise 

 de Paris; MS. Arch, de I'Emp., L. 5093, fol. 22 recto. 



