92 IVORY AND THE ELEPHANT 



of the older ivory carvings, it may be noted that, in 1910, the 

 Victoria and Albert Museum of London purchased a Byzan- 

 tine ivory depicting Christ for the sum of £180, and the same 

 institution acquired two years later, for £60, a triptych-leaf 

 carved with an image of the Virgin, this leaf having probably 

 formed part, with that previously mentioned, of a Byzantine 

 triptych.* 



An ivory relic of the early days of Mexico City was re- 

 cently brought to light in the course of excavations made 

 during the building of a sewer along a new street in that city. 

 This necessitated the removal of an old church, used in late 

 years as the chapel of a nunnery and religious school. In 

 the foundations of the old church the devotees of long ago 

 had buried a number of carvings and trinkets as thank- 

 offerings, objects of no great intrinsic value it is true, but 

 doubtless highly prized as relics or heirlooms by those who 

 dedicated them to the church. f 



The unique and powerful novel, "Salammbo," that strange 

 and fascinating attempt of the great French litterateur, Gus- 

 tave Flaubert, to evoke the image of ancient Carthage, has 

 furnished in the figure of its heroine the inspiration for two 

 most remarkable and characteristic examples of modern 

 French art in the domain of ivory carving. These are by 

 the sculptor Theodore Riviere, one being an entirely nude 

 figure of the Carthaginian heroine, her head thrown back 

 and her body rather framed than draped in the heavy folds 

 of a long mantle. There is a feline sensuality in the face, 

 rather suggestive of the tigress than the woman. This is 

 perhaps less apparent in the other ivory reproduction of 

 Salammbo by the same artist, which offers her figure and 

 that of her infatuated admirer, Matho; here again the face 



*Commumcated by Dr. Cecil Smith, Curator of the Victoria and Albert Museum. 

 fThis interesting Mexican relic was given by Henry Sayres, a banker of Mexico City, 

 to Dr. Lee H. Smith, president of the Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences. 



