A 'unicorn' narwhal tusk probably 18th/19th century

Margaret B. Freeman, The Unicorn Tapestries, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1983.

In overall good condition, overall with minor dryness cracks running parallel with twisted structure, on metal stand.
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The unicorn, first described around 400 B.C. by Ctesias - a Greek physician to the Persian court of Artaxerxes and Darius II - as a wild ass living in India, white and with a dark read head and dark blue eyes. He further elaborates the drinking from vessels made from his horn prevent convulsion and falling sickness. Pliny the Elder, in the first century A.D. gives the mythical animal its name Monoceros, in the Bible the fierce equine is downscaled into the form of a he-goat (Daniel, 8:5-7, 21), his strength likened to the power of God and becoming a symbol for Christ.
During the Middle Ages, while retaining his spiritual symbolism, the unicorn assumes also that of True Love. This can only be captured by a virgin maid who is beautiful and uncovers her breast, as Pseudo-Hugo of Saint Victor (1096-1141) adds. Throughout the Middle Ages the unicorn retains both symbolisms, sacred and profane. Thibaut, Count of Champagne (1201-1253) composed this song to his beloved:

The Unicorn and I are one:

He also pauses in amaze

Before some maiden's magic gaze,

And while he wonders, is undone.

On some dear breast he slumbers deep

And Treason slays him in that sleep.

Just so have ended my life's days;

So Love and my Lady lay me low.

My heart will not survive this blow.

 

From the fourteenth century on, the nobility owned drinking vessels fashioned from unicorn's horn to test for poison. A tusk, such as the one offered herewith would have sold for several times its weight in gold and was considered among the greatest treasures for a cathedral, monastery or palace; later it found its way into the pharmacies on account of its medicinal properties and as a precious curiosity.
In the detail of the second of the Cloister's seven unicorn tapestries, illustrated here, he is shown kneeling, his horn in the water, purifying the water for all animals around.