Openwork furniture plaque with a grazing oryx in a forest of fronds
Not on view
Furniture inlaid with carved ivory plaques was highly prized by the Assyrian kings. During the ninth to seventh centuries B.C., vast quantities of luxury goods, often embellished with carved ivory in local, Syrian, and Phoenician styles, accumulated in Assyrian palaces, much of it as booty or tribute. This object belongs to a group of plaques depicting animals and stylized plants. They were made by master carvers in a delicate openwork technique characteristic of Phoenician ivory carving. However, the style and subjects depicted have close parallels on stone relief sculptures from Tell Halaf, in northern Syria, and a debate exists over which tradition produced these fine panels.
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