The style and subjects suggest this comb was made in Northern France during the first half of the sixteenth century. It is ornamented with a refine pierced foliate Renaissance scrollwork, three open-work medallions, containing male and female busts, and bearded profile masks at each end.

Ivory combs, together with mirror cases and gravoirs for parting the hair, formed an essential part of the trousse de toilette or étui (dressing case) of the typical wealthy lady or gentleman in the period. Luxury items, such as combs were often made in Paris, especially during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. During the seventeenth century Dieppe (Normandie) became increasingly significant for small-scale sculpture in ivory, perhaps because it was a port, meaning that ivory could be easily shipped in.

Closely comparable combs, probably made in the same workshop, show different combinations of similar open worked Renaissance motifs. One in the Musée du Louvre (OA 145; see Philippe Malgouyres, Ivoires de la Renaissance et des temps modernes. La Collection du musée du Louvre, Paris 2010, cat.127) shows two putti leaning on each other with medallions on each side and the same bearded masks on each end of the comb. Another one, in Dresde (Grüne Gewölbe, inv.VII.173), has a central medallion with putti leaning on it. The ornated corners of these three combs are all very similar. Other examples of comparable combs: V&A Inv. no. 2145-1855 and 232-1867; Madrid, Museo Lazzaro Galdiano, inv. 346; Rouen, départment des Antiquités, inv. 2005.2.12; Ernest Brummer Sale Catalogue, Zurich, 16-18 October 1979, I, cat. no. 87.