a rare late gothic love casket, so called "Minnekaestchen", Rhenish or South Netherlandish late 15th century

veneered in bone and engraved with figures on either side of the Fountain of Youth, scenes of courtship and hunting scenes, the border engraved with a pattern of scrolling foliage, applied with small rings of brass, the hasp and the lock plate also of brass, the underside inlaid with a chessboard, lined on the inside with cloth, stained red

Related Literature:
Koechlin 1924, cat. no. 957

Randall 1993, no. 195

It has been suggested that the apparent dearth of ivory carving in the fifteenth century and the increased use of bone was caused by the natural disaster in the elephant population or the stagnation of the Arab ivory trade. The present games box belongs to a group carved with similar figures which were believed to originate from either eastern France - Alsace or the Upper Rhine - based on the coats-of-arms of German families from the regions of Baden Baden and Strassbourg which survive.  Koechlin however believed that these caskets were produced under Italian influcence at the court of Charles VI. The recent Louvre ivory catalogue suggests however that they are of Southern Netherlandish origin based on their affinity with medieval manuscript painting of the period