The famous romances of the middle ages supplied endless subjects for
sculptors in ivory as well as for the painter, the illuminator, and
the enameller. They may be referred, in general, to four classes, of
which the first and the fourth seem to have been the favourite sources
from which were taken the decorations of caskets and mirror cases. They
were— 1. Those relating to Arthur and the knights of the round table.
2. Those connected with Charlemagne and his paladins. 3. The Spanish
and Portuguese romances, which chiefly contain the adventures of Amadis
and Palmerin. 4. What may be termed classical romances, which represent
the heroes of antiquity in the guise of romantic fiction: such, for
example, as the romance of Virgil, of Jason, or of Alexander. To these
may be added one more, the romance of the Rose, an allegorical poem
which was probably more widely read than any other of the time. From
this, realising an allegory, came the frequent subject of the siege of
the castle of Love. Many of the romances were written both in prose
and verse: three splendid volumes, French manuscripts of the beginning
of the fourteenth century, in the British museum, contain the Saint
Graal and Lancelot du Lac. The histories of Merlin, Perceval, Meliadus,
Tristan, and Perceforest were also amongst the most popular.
The French manuscripts just referred to (_additional_, 10,292) are full
of illuminations, some illustrating in an especial way the carvings on
ivories of the same date. Another, of the same character and of like
interest and value, is in the Bodleian: the romance of Alexander.
The romance of the Rose was a dull and monotonous poem of perhaps ten
thousand lines, from which for nearly three hundred years its readers,
if they looked at it with pious and religious eyes, learnt their maxims
of morality, of science, and philosophy. Others, again, read it as
men now read Ovid’s Art of love and saw nothing of its mysticism or
scholastic subtleties. It was written somewhere about the year 1300,
and, with the omission of some five thousand lines in the middle,
Chaucer’s translation is very accurate and good. It was frequently
moralised: in France, by Clement Marot; and in England (perhaps from
the French also) long before, by Grosseteste, bishop of Lincoln. These
made the Rose to be the Virgin Mary, and the towers and the defences
of the castle are the four cardinal virtues, and holy chastity, and
buxomness, and meekness. The castle itself is thus described:
“This is the castel of love and lisse,
Of solace, of socour, of joye, and blisse,
Of hope, of hele, of sikernesse,
And ful of alle swetnesse.”
Among the many fictions which were founded on the traditions of king
Arthur none were more common or better known than those which related
the love adventures of Lancelot and queen Guinevre; and of Tristan and
Isoude, the queen of Mark king of Cornwall. Subjects from both these
tales are frequent on ivory caskets and mirror cases. The disgrace
of Aristotle comes from the romance of Alexander; and from that of
Virgil we have the poet in his mediæval character of magician. Both the
poet and the philosopher, in spite of their great age and wisdom, are
made fools of by the ladies of the story. One is induced to carry his
mistress on his back, the other is hauled up in a basket to a window
and left there dangling at sunrise before all the people.
We must not leave caskets without mention of the very graceful open
work with which the panels of many of them were often decorated, and
which have come down to us (speaking generally) only in parts or
fragments. Two woodcuts are given here, full size, from a series of
small panels, formerly in the Meyrick collection, which is, unhappily,
now dispersed.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
The South Kensington museum is rich also in the marriage coffers, as
they are commonly called, of Italian work of about the fourteenth
century. Coffers of this kind, such, for example, as the small casket
(in the two woodcuts) no. 2563, were seldom executed in ivory: almost
always in bone of fine quality, sometimes nearly equal to ivory in
delicacy of grain and colour. It is probably owing to their general use
in Italy at that time that ivory could not be obtained in sufficient
quantity, except at great cost; for the workmanship is frequently that
of artists who must have been of the highest eminence as sculptors. One
of the most interesting of the marriage caskets in the South Kensington
museum is no. 5624, formerly in the Soulages collection, of which there
is almost a duplicate in the public library at Paris.
Lenormant, in the Trésor de glyptique, has given three plates of the
Paris casket and says also that another, exactly like it was (when he
wrote) in the possession of M. D’Assy, of Meaux.
The largest casket of this kind in England is in the possession of Mr.
Julian Goldsmid. It is in excellent preservation and well finished in
every respect. The size is certainly unusual: two feet three inches
in height, two feet and a half long, and two feet broad. The separate
bones which ornament it are filled with shields and armorial bearings;
ten on the front and back, seven on each side. The mouldings at the
top are richly decorated with bold scrolls of foliage and animals.
The top of the coffer and the side mouldings are marquetry, inlaid in
diamond-shaped quarries with large pieces of bone.
A coffer of the same school and date, not much less in size and of much
higher quality and workmanship, is in private possession at Leamington,
in Warwickshire. The sides are filled with small statuettes admirably
executed, and perhaps giving the history of some poem or romance. This
is, probably, the best example of Italian marriage coffers in this
country.
M. Lenormant also refers, as of the same school, to the magnificent
Retable de Poissy, in the museum of the Louvre, of which Sir D. Wyatt
has given the following description: “It was made for Jean de Berry
brother of Charles V. and for his second wife, Jeanne, countess of
Auvergne. They are represented on it kneeling, and accompanied by
their patron saints. It is no less than seven feet six inches wide,
and is one mass of carving. It consists of three arcades, surmounted
by canopies, and supported by angle pilasters and a base. The subjects
are taken from the New Testament and from the legends of the saints.
It is believed [there can, rather, be no doubt] that it is of Italian
workmanship, the little figures having much Giottesque character in
their treatment.” This famous retable is, like the marriage caskets,
carved in bone.
[Illustration]
There is no finer specimen of this style and work than the beautiful
predella, formerly in the Gigli-Campana collection, now at South
Kensington, no. 7611. It is, unfortunately, not perfect; the centre
panel is a later addition and the original piece has been lost. It is
possible that there were at one time also other smaller panels. The
woodcut shows well the general style of these carvings in bone.
The French and English caskets of the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries were frequently ornamented, like the mirror cases, the
combs, and the writing-tablets, with domestic scenes. We have ladies
and gentlemen sometimes represented playing at chess or draughts or
similar games; sometimes riding, or hawking, or hunting; sometimes
in gardens with birds and dogs; sometimes dancing. Subjects of this
character are of great importance and interest, no less valuable than
illuminations in manuscripts, as showing the dress and the armour and,
to a considerable extent, the manners and customs of the day.
One other class of subjects may be noticed which supplied the
decorations of caskets of the fifteenth century, and which is found
occasionally on panels of cabinets or the larger kind of household
furniture; namely, morris dancers and women playing on musical
instruments. Generally, carvings of this description are found upon
bone: two examples are in the South Kensington museum, no. 4660 and no.
6747. There was also one in the Meyrick collection, of which a woodcut
is given on the next page.
Domestic subjects are of more common occurrence upon combs and mirror
cases than on caskets; and, upon the former, scenes also from early
legends; occasionally, some circumstance from Scripture. Of Scripture
subjects the message from David to Bathsheba is the most frequent;
probably, because Bathsheba is represented generally in her bath. There
are two examples in the South Kensington museum alone: no. 2143 and no.
468. It is not difficult to understand why scenes from the old story of
the fountain of Youth should have been a favourite subject.
It may be observed that the garden scenes on ivory combs remind us
often of the beautiful painting of the “Dream of life” by Orcagna, in
the Campo santo, at Pisa.
[Illustration]
Combs of ivory and bone are frequently found in tombs of the Roman and
Anglo-saxon period in England; and before that time in British graves.
They are often tinged and coloured green, from lying in contact with
metal objects. A very curious one, in the shape of a hand, was mixed
with the remains buried in a Pict’s house in the north of Scotland;
a double tooth-comb was found on the site of the Roman station at
Chesterford, in Essex; and (to name no more of this kind, for the
specimens are very many) an ivory comb was among the relics in the
tomb said to be of St. Cuthbert, at Durham. Mr. Raine also prints an
inventory (dated 1383) of relics at Durham, among which are the comb of
Malachias the archbishop, the comb of St. Boysil the priest, and the
ivory comb of St. Dunstan. Somewhat later than this date is an entry
in the register of the cathedral of Glasgow, where a precious burse is
mentioned with the combs of St. Kentigern and St. Thomas of Canterbury.
A very curious comb, but much mutilated, is preserved in the library
of the Society of antiquaries. It was exhibited in 1764 and engraved
in the 8th vol. of the Archæologia. The statement is that it was found
deeply buried under a street in Aberdeen, and supposed to have been
lost there in the time of Edward III. who burnt the city. But the type
of the ornaments upon it is of an earlier character than that date.
The comb given by queen Theodolinda at the end of the sixth century to
the church of Monza is still kept.
This last would be a ceremonial comb, used formerly by a bishop
before celebrating high mass or before other great functions, and
included among the vestments and ceremonial ornaments of a bishop of
England down to the reign of Edward the sixth. “Tobalia et pecten ad
pectinandum” were ordered to be provided for the consecration of a
bishop elect, in the Sarum pontifical. One of the earliest of these
combs now known to exist is in the treasury of the cathedral of Sens,
and said to be of the sixth century. Another, English and of the
eleventh century, is in the British museum. It is carved in open work
with men and interlacing scroll ornament. Unhappily, it is not perfect.
A woodcut is given on the next page of this very important ivory.
Another, richly carved with subjects from the gospels, is said to be
preserved at Hardwick court, in Gloucestershire. Such ceremonial combs
are often mentioned in church inventories and other ecclesiastical
documents of the middle ages. Seven or eight are specified as belonging
to St. Paul’s cathedral in the year 1222: three large, three small;
one “pecten pulchrum” the gift of John de Chishulle; and three others;
all of ivory. There were as many in the treasury of the cathedral of
Canterbury, in 1315.
[Illustration]
When the supposed tomb of St. Cuthbert was opened in 1827 it has been
already said that there was found, among other relics deposited with
the body of the saint, an ivory comb. This comb has a double row of
teeth, divided by a broad plain band perforated in the middle with a
round hole for the finger. In size it measures six inches and a quarter
by five inches. The historian of the proceedings on that occasion says
that the comb is probably of the eleventh century, but he gives no
reason; and if the grave were really the grave of St. Cuthbert it is
almost certain that the comb was his and used by him, ceremonially, as
bishop.
[Illustration]
The examples in the South Kensington collection were all made for
private use, and the woodcut represents an Italian specimen, no.
2144. English family inventories from the fourteenth to the sixteenth
century, occasionally include combs of that kind. To name one only:
the list of the effects of Roger de Mortimer at Wigmore castle, in the
reign of Edward the second, specifies “j pecten de ebore.”
One half only of the mirror cases, speaking generally, has been
preserved. It is very rare to find both covers. Originally, the mirror
was fastened to one side, and the other slid over it or was unscrewed.
No example of both parts is in the South Kensington collection, and
only one (it is believed) in the British museum. People, as time went
on, probably thought that an unornamented side was not worth taking
care of.
We find the subjects sculptured on mirror cases to be almost always
scenes from domestic life, or from some poem or romance. Naturally
it would be so. The only exceptions among all the examples at South
Kensington are two, on one of which is a representation of the Almighty
Father and the dead Christ, on the other the message of David to
Bathsheba. The rest, ten or twelve in number, have hunting and garden
scenes, or players at chess, or assaults on the castle of Love. So it
is also with the large collection of ivory mirror cases in the British
museum.
The use of small mirrors is to be traced to the earliest historic
period, and to be found among almost every people of the world. In the
most ancient times they were commonly of metal; and it is believed that
none, except of that material, has yet been found in any tomb of Egypt,
or Greece, or Italy. These, unlike the mediæval mirror, had generally
flat and broad handles, and the backs were often incised with various
designs, mythological subjects, gods and goddesses, or from stories of
the poets.
Many metallic mirrors have been found in Roman burial-places in
England. Several are described in modern archæological publications;
one especially curious, found in 1823 at Coddenham in Suffolk. This
is important as an early example in respect of the smallness of its
size and because it is enclosed in a case. It “is a portable trinket,
consisting of a thin circular bronze case, divided horizontally into
two nearly equal portions, which fit one into the other; and, being
opened, it presents a convex mirror in each face of the interior.” The
diameter is scarcely more than two inches, and on one side is the head
of the emperor Nero.
Anglo-saxon mirrors have seldom been found. Two, both discovered in a
barrow near Sandwich, are engraved in the _Nenia Britannica_. Mirrors
were nevertheless commonly used by ladies at that time; and there is a
letter preserved in Bede from pope Boniface IV. to Ethelberga, queen of
Edwin of Northumbria in 625, wherein he requests her acceptance of an
ivory comb and a silver mirror. Combs and mirrors are frequent on the
sculptured stones of Scotland; they occur on more than fifty, according
to a table given in the preface to the admirable work published by the
Spalding club; and seven stones have representations of mirror cases.
Dr. Stuart in a short paper upon these sculptures, read before the
International congress of prehistoric archæology in 1868, assigns to
them a date not later than the seventh, eighth, or ninth century, and
believes that the figures on the rude pillars may be of even an earlier
date, before Christian times.
It is not known when glass covered at the back with lead was introduced
in place of the earlier metallic mirror. Probably some of the cases
which are in various collections were the covers of the new material.
John Peckham, an Englishman, wrote in the middle of the thirteenth
century a treatise on optics in which he speaks not only of steel
mirrors but often of glass mirrors, and adds that when the lead was
scraped off the back no image was reflected.
There is, or perhaps was 150 years ago, a curious coat of arms in a
painted window of the fourteenth century, in the chancel of the church
of Thame in Oxfordshire, on which was blazoned a mirror in a case with
a handle attached to it. “He beareth _argent_,” says Guillim in his
Display of heraldry, “a tyger passant, regardant, gazing in a mirror
or looking-glass, all _proper_.... Some report, that those who rob the
tiger of her young, use a policy to detain their dam from following
them, by casting sundry looking-glasses in the way, whereat she useth
long to gaze, etc.”
Ladies using mirrors at their toilet frequently form a subject for
illustration in fourteenth century manuscripts. These mirrors are
precisely of the usual shape and size of those which have come down to
us in ivory. Several may be seen in the manuscript romance of Lancelot
du Lac in the British museum: in one, a lady lying on a couch holds the
mirror in her hand whilst an attendant dresses her hair with a comb;
in another, she herself uses both mirror and comb. A hundred years
later the same design was engraved on one of a pack of cards, “_la
damoiselle_,” by “the Master of 1466,” now in the national library at
Paris.
Love scenes, as in the etching, or the siege of the castle of Love
are subjects often found on mirror cases. The woodcut on this page is
copied from an example at South Kensington, no. 1617. Another copy of
the same romance of Lancelot, which has been just referred to, has an
illumination of a real assault upon a castle, treated in a similar
manner. Knights place ladders against the wall; the battlements are
defended by the garrison; the attack is made with cross-bows and a
catapult; and men lie dead upon the ground. Another of much interest is
given as “the twelfth battle” in the manuscript in the British museum
so well known as queen Mary’s psalter, written about the year 1320;
in this, women look at the attack over the battlements of the town or
castle.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: IVORY CARVING. CIRCULAR MIRROR COVER. DATE 1300-1330.
(SOLTIKOFF COLL.) DIAM 5½ in.
2.K.M (N^o 210.65) D. JONES _FECIT_.]
[Illustration]
Knights tilting, or a tournament, or ladies and gentlemen riding
through woods and preceded by attendants with dogs, are also common
subjects. The contemporary manuscripts illustrate the same design. Both
on the mirror cases and in the illuminations the lady is generally
seen riding astride. Women are so represented more than once in the
romance of Lancelot: for example _fol._ 120_a_, and 163_a_. A queen is
riding, _fol._ 181_b_. In queen Mary’s psalter, the treatment on the
mirror cases of people riding is almost exactly repeated, _fol._ 217;
again, 218_b_, and 223_b_. Other examples may be seen in the Bodleian
manuscript of the romance of Alexander, _fol._ 100 and 130. The same
custom lasted in Lithuania until, at least, the year 1800.
There is one other ornamental design very common on mirror cases;
people playing at chess or draughts. Margaret Paston writes in the
reign of Richard the third to her husband, and says that at the
Christmas following the death of lord Morley his widow would permit no
amusements in her house, “non dysgysyngs ner harpyng ner lutyng—but
pleying at the tabyllys and schesse.” This brings us to an interesting
and important class of carvings in ivory.
The date of the introduction of the games of chess and draughts into
Europe, and more particularly among the northern nations and our own
ancestors the Anglo-saxons, is a historical question upon which there
has been great dispute. The game of chess was certainly played at a
very early period in the east, and from thence probably passed through
the Arabs into Greece. There are allusions to chess and chessmen
in many writers before the twelfth century, and these incidental
references are of more value than the positive assertions which later
authors, after the manner of their day, did not hesitate to advance.
For example Caxton, or rather the author of the “Playe of the Chesse.”
“This playe fonde a phylosopher of thoryent whych was named in
caldee Exerces, for which is as moche to say in englissh as he that
louyth Justyce and mesure.” And this decision was not without due
consideration of the matter; for just before we are told: “Trewe it
is that somme men wene that this play was founden in the tyme of the
bataylles and siege of troye. But that is not so.... After that cam
this playe in the tyme of Alixaunder the grete in to egypt, and so unto
alle the parties toward the south.”
This treatise on chess is said to have been written nearly two hundred
years before Caxton lived by Jacobus de Casulis, a French Dominican
friar, about 1290. A copy is in the British museum, MS. Harl. 1275; and
it was printed at Milan in 1479.
Chaucer however, in “the Dreame,” names not Exerces but Athalus as the
supposed inventor of the game, in a passage worth quoting:
“Therewith Fortune saith, check here,
And mate in the mid point of the checkere,
With a pawne errant, alas,
Ful craftier to playe she was
Than Athalus that made the game,
First to the chesse, so was his name.”
We may, however, put aside the old guesses of early writers, for
evidence still exists which sets at rest all doubt that chess was known
and played in France in Carlovingian times, and we can understand
easily, therefore, why mediæval poets and romance writers so often
introduced stories about the game. Some ivory chessmen, six in number,
were long preserved in the treasury of the abbey of St. Denis, and
the old tradition was that they were given with the chess-table by
Charlemagne himself. The greater number of the pieces and the table
had been lost for many years, as long ago as 1600. The remainder,
transferred at the revolution from St. Denis, are now in the public
library at Paris. Sir Frederic Madden, in a very able and learned paper
in the Archæologia, says of them: “The dresses and ornaments are all
strictly in keeping with the Greek _costume_ of the ninth century; and
it is impossible not to be convinced, from the general character of the
figures, that these chessmen really belong to the period assigned them
by tradition, and were, in all probability, executed at Constantinople
by an Asiatic Greek, and sent as a present to Charlemagne, either by
the empress Irene, or by her successor Nicephorus.... One thing is
certain, that these chessmen, from their size and workmanship, must
have been designed for no ignoble personage: and, from the decided
style of Greek art, it is a more natural inference to suppose them
presented to Charlemagne by a sovereign of the lower empire, than that
they came to him as an offering from the Moorish princes of Spain, or
even from the caliph Haroun al Raschid, who gave many costly gifts to
the emperor of the west.”
In the East India museum almost a complete set of ivory chessmen is
preserved, perhaps the most ancient examples now known to exist:
older even than the chessmen from St. Denis. These were found about
twenty years ago, mixed with a quantity of broken pottery, human
bones, and other relics, amongst the ruins of some houses excavated
on the site of the city of Brahmunabad in Sind, which was destroyed
by an earthquake in the eighth century. The pieces are turned; plain
in character, without ornament. Several are in a very fragile state,
having perished in the same way as the Assyrian ivories; and an attempt
should be made to restore, if possible, some of the lost substance.
A few fragments of a chessboard were also found, incised with small
circles, not interlacing. The chessmen and the squares of the board are
black and white: ivory and ebony. The kings and queens are about three
inches high; the pawns one inch; and the other pieces are of different
intermediate heights. Coins were also found of the caliphs of Bagdad,
about A.D. 750.
The mediæval chronicles, poems, and romances are full of references
to the game. The anonymous author of the history of Ramsey monastery,
writing about the year 1100, tells us that bishop Ætheric coming late
one night to king Canute found him still playing chess, “regem adhuc
scaccorum ludo longioris tædia noctis relevantem invenit.” Strutt
quotes this passage in his sports and pastimes; and Sir F. Madden adds
the following translation from a French manuscript of the thirteenth
century. It is much to our present purpose, in illustration of the
legends whence the subjects of mirror decorations were derived:—
“Orgar was playing at the chess,
A game he had learned of the Danes;
With him played the fair Elstrueth,
A fairer maiden was not under heaven.”
The story is of a mission from king Edgar to earl Orgar in the tenth
century.
Chaucer again tells us how
“They dancen and they play at ches and tables;”
and in the merchant’s second tale he describes a chessboard:—
“So when they had ydyned, the cloth was up ytake,
A ches ther was ybrought forth; ...
The ches was all of ivory, the meyne fresh and new,
Ipulshid and ypikid, of white, asure, and blue.”
A very curious passage occurs in a book originally written in French,
in April 1371, and translated about the reign of Henry the sixth: a
copy is in the British museum; _Harl._ 1764. “There was a gentille
knight’s daughter that wratthed atte the tables with a gentill man that
was riotous and comberous and hadd an evelle hede, and the debate was
on a point that he plaide, that she saide that it was wronge: and so
the wordes and the debate rose so that she saide that he was a lewde
[ignorant] fole, and thane lost the game in chiding.”
Chess-tables and chessmen are often specified in wills and inventories.
The inventory of the effects of Sir Roger de Mortimer, referred to
more than once, speaks of a coffer containing “j famil’ de ebore pro
scaccario;” and among the jewels in the wardrobe book of Edward the
first occur “una familia de ebore pro ludendo ad scaccarium,” and “una
familia pro scaccario de jaspide et cristallo.” The “familia” in these
entries is the same as the “meyne” in Chaucer’s lines just above; that
is, the retinue, the company, or the set of domestics.
[Illustration]
To quote from one will; Sir William Compton in his will, dated 1523
bequeathed to Henry the eighth “a little chest of ivory whereof one
lock is gilt, with a chessboard under the same, and a pair of tables
upon it, and all such jewels and treasures as are enclosed therein.”
The most complete set of ancient ivory chessmen now remaining was found
in the isle of Lewis, in Scotland, about the year 1831, and most of
them are now in the British museum. They are all of one character,
similar to the accompanying woodcut, which is engraved from another
walrus-ivory chessman, also in the British museum, and which was
obtained some few years ago from a private collection.
It would be more proper to speak of the Lewis chess pieces as several
sets, for there are some pieces enough for five or six. They are
sixty-seven in number—six kings, five queens, thirteen bishops,
fourteen knights, nineteen pawns, and ten (so-called) warders, which
took the place of the modern rook or castle. This large collection
was discovered by a labourer digging a sandbank, and every piece is
accurately described in detail by Sir F. Madden in a paper read before
the Society of antiquaries in 1832. They are all carved out of walrus
ivory.
Upon this material Sir Frederic observes that “the estimation in which
the teeth of the walrus were held by the northern nations rendered
them a present worthy of royalty; and this circumstance is confirmed
by a tradition preserved in the curious saga of Kröka the crafty, who
lived in the tenth century.” [The saga itself is believed to have
been written in the fourteenth century.] “It is there related, that
Gunner, prefect of Greenland, wishing to conciliate the favour of
Harald Hardraad, king of Norway (A.D. 1050), sent him the three most
precious gifts the island could produce. These were, 1, a white bear;
2, a _chess-table_, or set of _chessmen_, exquisitely carved; 3, a
skull of the Rostungr (or _walrus_) with the teeth fastened in it,
and ornamented with gold.” The best Icelandic scholars take the term
_Tan-Tabl_ in the sense of _chessmen made of the teeth of the walrus_.
[Illustration]
Chessmen were occasionally made of considerably larger size. There is a
good example of this kind in the South Kensington collection, no. 8987;
and another, of which a woodcut is given, is in the British museum.
This last remarkable piece was presented in 1856, by Sir Henry Cole.
Scarcely less common than chessmen are small round pieces, generally
of the tusk of the walrus, which were used for a game probably like
the modern game of draughts, and to which frequent allusion is found
in mediæval books under the name of “tables.” The mirror cases give
us several representations of people engaged at this game, usually
a lady and a gentleman. There seem to have been fewer pieces used
than in our own days, and a smaller board or table. These draughtsmen
are almost all of the eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth centuries;
and the subjects men and animals, with scroll ornament interlacing.
Occasionally a single bird or a dragon fills the centre space.
Some of the decorations of the old church of Shobdon in Herefordshire
(pulled down about 100 years ago) were similar to the carvings upon
the draughtsmen and other works of that kind. These also were of the
twelfth century. One pillar was ornamented with a series of small
medallions tied together, exactly like the old draughtsmen. They
are engraved, from fragments of three of the principal arches still
preserved, in the first volume of the Archæological journal.
[Illustration]
This style of ornament is shown to great advantage upon the arm of
a chair of the eleventh or twelfth century, formerly in the Meyrick
collection; carved from two tusks of the walrus. It is not easy to
decide in what country this very important ivory was worked. One half
of it is given in the accompanying woodcut. The name, arm of a chair,
must be taken as a probable supposition. That it is one of a pair is
apparently certain: for in the centre on one side is an eagle, on the
other a winged lion; two of the four symbols of the Evangelists. These
are deeply sunk and enclosed in ornamental borders, exactly similar
to the draughtsmen of the same period. The sides from the centres to
the ends are richly carved in admirable style and workmanship with an
interlacing scroll ornament, in the midst of which are twined men and
fabulous animals. The ends have, for terminations, the heads of lions
designed with much spirit. On the under side, which is left perfectly
flat, are incised some small crosses, composed of the well-known little
circles called the bone ornament. There are other good examples of the
same style of decoration upon the specimens of the ancient Tau in the
South Kensington museum. In all of these, though the men and animals
are grotesque yet they have life and movement, and the foliage and
branches with which they are twined and intermingled are well executed.
The technical merit of the carving, deep in relief and often cut clear
from the solid substance of the ivory, is very remarkable.
[Illustration: TWO GROUPS OF THE CHESSMEN FOUND IN THE ISLAND OF
LEWIS.]