The attack on the Castle of Love became a popular image in the fourteenth century and is represented here with particular delicacy. Twenty- eight figures and five horses occupy the ground in front of the castle, as well as its battlements and windows. At the top the crowned and winged god of love prepares to launch an arrow toward the lower left. The castle is defended by women armed with roses that they hurl at the attacking knights. The knights are greeted by some women with welcoming gestures; and, in the upper left, a woman offers a crown to one of the trumpeters, who will announce the playful joust to take place before the portcullis.
Two armed knights, their shields decorated with roses, ride in from the right to face their female opponents. A third, who has lost his shield and removed his helmet, stands on his horse to embrace a woman in a window to the left of the castle entrance.
The ivory disk is the size and shape of fourteenth- century mirror cases, some of which are decorated with the same theme; but the reverse is, uncharacteristically, threaded at the edge, suggesting that the disk may have been the cover of a circular box.
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Artwork Details
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Title:Roundel with Scenes of the Attack on the Castle of Love
Date:ca. 1320–40
Geography:Made in Paris, France
Culture:French
Medium:Elephant ivory
Dimensions:Overall: Diam. 5 9/16 x 1/2 in. (Diam. 14.1 x 1.2 cm)
Classification:Ivories-Elephant
Credit Line:The Cloisters Collection, 2003
Object Number:2003.131.1
Graf Ludwig zu Oettingen-Wallerstein (probably before 1824) ; Princes of Oettingen-Wallerstein (by descent, until 2003)
"Noch einiges über die Sammlung altdeutscher Gemälde in dem fürstl. Oettingen-Wallersteinischen Schlosse Wallerstein und über die dortigen sonstigen Kunstschätze." Morgenblatt für gebildete Stände / Kunstblatt 5, no. 90 (November 8, 1824). p. 359.
Hagen, Frederik. "Bilder aus dem Ritterleben und aus der Ritterdichtung: nach Elfenbeingebilden und Gedichten des Mittelalters." Abhandlungen der Königlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin Jahre 1855 (1856). pp. 497–98, pl. VI, no. 1.
Becker, Carl, and Jakob Heinrich von Hefner-Alteneck, ed. Kunstwerke und Geräthschaften des Mittelalters und der Renaissance. Vol. 2. Frankfurt am Main: Verlag Heinrich Keller, 1857. pp. 29–30, pl. 41.
Eye, August von, and Jacob Falke. Kunst und Leben der Vorzeit von Beginn des Mittelalters bis zu Anfang des 19. Jahrhunderts in Skizzen nach Original-Denkmälern. Vol. 1. Nuremberg: Verlag von Bauer & Raspe, 1858. pl. XLVI.
Essenwein, August Ottmar. "Über einige mittelalterliche Elfenbeinschnitzwerke und besonders über ein Spiegelgehäuse im Cistercienser-Stifte Reun in Steiermark." Anzeiger für Kunde der deutschen Vorzeit: Organ des Germanischen Museums, n.s., 13, no. 6 (June 1866). col. 204.
Schaefer, Georg. Die Denkmäler der Elfenbeinplastik des Grossherzoglichen Museums zu Darmstadt in kunstgeschichtlicher Darstellung. Darmstadt: Buchdruckerei von H. Brill, 1872. p. 73.
Kuhn, Joseph Alois. Katalog der Kunst- und Kunstindustrie-Ausstellung alter und neuer deutscher Meister sowie der deutschen Kunstschulen im Glaspalaste zu München 1876: Volume 2, Katalog für die Ausstellung der Werke älterer Meister. Munich: C. Wolf & Sohn, 1876. no. 1112, p. 162.
Westwood, J. O., ed. A Descriptive Catalogue of the Fictile Ivories in the South Kensington Museum, with an Account of the Continental Collection of Classical and Medieval Ivories. London: South Kensington Museum, 1876. p. 464.
Hefner-Alteneck, Jakob Heinrich von. Trachten, Kunstwerke und Geräthschaften vom frühen Mittelalter bis Ende des Achtzehnten Jahrhunderts nach gleichzeitigen Originalen. Vol. 3. Frankfurt am Main: Verlag Heinrich Keller, 1882. pp. 10–11, pl. 161.
Schultz, Alwin. Das Höfische Leben zur zeit der Minnesinger. Vol. 1. Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 1889. pp. 232–33 n. 1.
Grupp, Georg. Kulturgeschichte des Mittelalters. Vol. 2. Stuttgart: Jos. Roth'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1895. pp. 405–6, fig. 30.
Vogt, Friedrich, and Max Koch. Geschichte der deutschen Literatur von den ältesten Zeiten bis zur Gegenwart. Vol. 1. 4th ed. Leipzig and Vienna: Bibliographisches Institut, 1919. p. 241, fig. 37.
Pelka, Otto. Elfenbein. Bibliothek für Kunst- und Antiquitätensammler, Vol. 17. Berlin: Richard Carl Schmidt & Co., 1920. pp. 210–11, fig. 140.
Koechlin, Raymond. "Quelques groupes d'ivoires français: le dieu d'Amour et le château d'Amour sur les valves de boîtes à miroir." Gazette des Beaux Arts, 5th ser., 63, no. 4 (1921). p. 289.
Koechlin, Raymond. Les Ivoires Gothiques Français: Volume I, Text. Paris: Editions Auguste Picard, 1924. no. 1095, pp. 407, 408, 489.
Koechlin, Raymond. Les Ivoires Gothiques Français: Volume II, Catalogue. Paris: Editions Auguste Picard, 1924. no. 1095, p. 396.
Grupp, Georg. Kulturgeschichte des Mittelalters. Vol. 5. Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 1925. p. 15.
Barnet, Peter, ed. Images In Ivory: Precious Objects of the Gothic Age. Detroit: Detroit Institute of Arts, 1997. p. 231.
Avril, François, ed. L'art au temps des rois maudits: Philippe le Bel et ses fils, 1285-1328. Paris: Réunion des Musées Nationaux, 1998. p. 159.
"Departmental Accessions." Annual Report of the Trustees of the Metropolitan Museum of Art 133 (Jul. 1, 2002–Jun. 30, 2003). p. 24.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Recent Acquisitions: A Selection, 2002-2003." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, n.s., 61, no. 2 (Fall 2003). p. 12.
Barnet, Peter, and Nancy Y. Wu. The Cloisters: Medieval Art and Architecture. New York and New Haven: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2005. no. 59, pp. 96, 196.
Barnet, Peter. "Recent Acquisitions (1999-2008) of Medieval Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Cloisters, New York: Supplement." The Burlington Magazine 150, no. 1268 (November 2008). p. 797, fig. XII.
Barnet, Peter. "Medieval Europe." In Philippe de Montebello and The Metropolitan Museum of Art: 1977–2008, edited by James R. Houghton. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2009. pp. 24, 27, fig. 39.
Barnet, Peter, and Nancy Y. Wu. The Cloisters: Medieval Art and Architecture. 75th Anniversary ed. New York and New Haven: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2012. p. 97.
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