Lot with independent expertise for the marketing of antique ivory objects.

Mounted on a plexiglass in the form of a comb.

For this fragment of a plaque, probably originally the central body of a comb made entirely of ivory, a suggestive stylistic and iconographic comparison is possible with the comb conserved at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London (inventory number 5607-1859), which presents on one side of lovers in a garden, while on the other you can see characters who alternate in a playful court procession. Objects of this kind, which in this specific case can be circumscribed to the Venetian and Northern Italy production, spread widely in the Gothic courts of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, essential elements of the dressing case of the ladies of the time: due to the fragility of the material and of their nature of objects of use, however few have come down to our days.

Comparative literature: P. Williamson and G. Davies, "Medieval Ivory Carvings, 1200-1550", Victoria and Albert Museum, London 2014, part II, pp. 614-615, cat. n° 211.