A rare and important carved Ivory Oliphant, Sicily or Southern Italy, circa 1100

of characteristic tapered tusk form, carved to leave two raised bands at the thinner end, decorated with simply carved scrolling motifs

There is some wear and scratching to the ivory consistent with age and handling. There is some splitting to the surface consistent with material. There is a particular patch of wear to left side of the horn in the centre and there are chips to the band of decoration running along the bottom of the left side and on the right side of both bands of decoration running across the horn. There is a large loss to the end of the horn at the bottom and the original (metal) mounts have been lost, as viewed.
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The word 'oliphant' is a loan word from old French meaning 'elephant', first documented in the English translation of the twelfth century Song of Roland. The tale describes Roland, the leader of the rear guard of Charlemagne's army fighting the battle of Roncevaux against the 'Saracens' in 778 AD. He was eventually fatally wounded by the Arabian enemy and with his final dying breath blew the horn until it cracked to announce his death. Henceforth the low but loud call of the elephant tusk (often interpreted as an indication for something to appear or happen) caused it to be thought of as an almost mythical or even magical object during the Middle Ages; they were prized symbols of wealth and power, passed down through centuries by aristocrats into Europe's treasure houses.

The peak time for the carving of ivory in the Mediterranean region was around 1100 AD, and indeed surviving oliphants from this period are extremely rare. Only around eighty examples from the eleventh and twelfth centuries survive, a testament to the cultural interchange between the Orient and the Occident on the Mediterranean Island of Sicily. Oliphants were carved from African ivory and were probably prevalent in Fatimid Egypt, although no example has survived. Until 1071 AD Sicily was part of the Fatimid empire. However, quarrels within the Muslim regime gave the Christian rulers of southern Italy an opportunity to send in Norman mercenaries as a conquering force. Roger I, who became Norman Count of Sicily and the first in the line of Norman rulers of Sicily, led the invasion. The Norman genius was not only interested in capturing this Islamic stronghold but in maintaining it successfully, by keeping Muslims and Byzantine Greeks in positions of influence. Using the heterogeneous nature of their society, the Normans in Sicily capitalised on their geographic location as a nexus of culture and trade. In the twelfth century, when the island became a kingdom, it was one of the wealthiest states in Europe, wealthier even than England.

The present oliphant is executed in an outstandingly simple manner, displaying a shallow and in parts almost sketchy decoration, reduced to mere incised lines. It can be most closely compared to another in the collection of the Louvre Museum, Paris (see D. Gaborit-Chopin, Ivoires médiévaux – Ve-Xve siècle, exh. cat., Louvre Museum, Paris, 2003, ref.OA 4069, pp.217-8, no.64), which shares the smooth, unsculpted surface of the main body combined with two foliate bands near the mouthpiece opening. A cavity and several drilled holes in the corpus indicate that the horn might once have been mounted for use as a reliquary.

Further comparisons can be made with the twisted rope pattern running along the upper length of the oliphant, which corresponds with the decoration of a hunting horn dated to the eleventh century in the collection of the Walters Art Gallery (see Randall, Islamic Ivories, Masterpieces of Ivory from the Walters Art Gallery, New York, 1985, pp.149-161, no.247. A final comparable oliphant exists in the Musée de l'Armée, Paris (published in A. Shalem, The Oliphant, Islamic Objects in Historical Context, Leiden, 2004, Plate XIV). In this instance, the foliate bands of the upper section bear some similarity, although the cutting technique of the oliphant at hand seems more angular.

Related Literature:
O.v. Falke, Elfenbeinhörner. I. Ägypten und Italien, Pantheon, 4, 1929, pp.511-517.
O.v. Falke, Elfenbeinhörner. II. Byzanz, Pantheon, 5, 1930, pp.39-44.
E. Kühnel, Die islamischen Elfenbeinskulpturen VIII.-XIII. Jahrhundert, Berlin, 1971.
A. Shalem, Islam Christianized, Frankfurt/Main, 1996, pp.99-110.
A. Shalem and R. Pinder-Wilson, A newly discovered Oliphant in a Private Collection in London, Mitteilungen zur Spätantiken Archäologie und Byzantinischen Kunstgeschichte, 2, 2000, pp.79-92.

This lot is accompanied by a C14 analysis report confirming a circa 1100 AD date of manufacture.