- Export bar is to allow time for a UK gallery or institution to acquire the piece
A French Gothic ivory casket worth more than £1.5 million is at risk of leaving the UK unless a buyer can be found to save it for the nation.
The casket is one of just nine known 14th century French composite caskets that depict scenes from mediaeval romance tales. It includes a detailed and early depiction of wild men, mythical creatures appearing in mediaeval European art and literature that symbolise people living outside ‘civilised’ society. The casket shows them assaulting a castle in a rare variation on the popular theme of the storming of the Castle of Love.
The Castle of Love was a commonly depicted scene on secular ivories in the 14th century in which women and girls are shown defending a castle attacked by knights. The scene was so popular at the time that there are records of re-enactments where castles were built and defended by women and girls of the town while men attacked them with fruits and flowers.
On the lid of this casket, wild men and knights are shown engaged in a…
