Anonymous: Set of Three Panels from a Casket with Scenes from Courtly Romances (1330-50)

(Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, USA)

Three ivory carvings made by an unknown French artist. These three panels come from a casket (the middle one is the lid, the other two are side panels). The panels are decorated with several scenes of courtly romances:

- The top one: the fountain of youth, the hunt of the unicorn, an elephant with a large howdah, with a couple in it, and an archer. 

- The middle one: the siege of the castle of love and a jousting scene. 

- The bottom one: Sir Gawain and the Lion, and Lancelot crossing the sword bridge (these are two stories of King Arthur's Knights of the Round Table). 

Expensive caskets like these were usually gifts between a man and a woman of the elite. Ivory carvings from 1330-1350.