Staff or handle, section of, ivory, carved with a variety of beasts, England or Plantagenet domain (France), ca. 1170-80

Section of a staff or handle. Cylindrical in shape with figures of animals, real and imaginary. The staff is divided into 7 registers with 3 squares to each tier. The tiers are grouped in pairs and divided by beaded strips. The 21 squares contain a variety of beasts, roughly grouped by type. The bottom tier contains winged dragons with serpents' tails. The second shows a lion, a wild boar and a bear. The third a deer, a centaur and a monkey. The fourth register has a griffin, and two winged quadrupeds, one with either an offspring or prey. The fifth shows a winged sphinx and prey, a winged quadruped with fish and a griffin with a serpents' tail. The sixth tier contains two cockerels, a duck and a swan. And the top register shows a sword-wielding half-man with serpent's tail, another duck and a flying bird. The shaft is hollowed out from the bottom to a depth of 7.9 cm. There is a screw thread, indicating that a plain, long dowel was employed to attach it to a further section below.

Purchased from Webb, £55.

This cylindrical section has been associated with three other pieces of comparable scale and design (Metropolitan, NY / British Museum / Louvre) and the shaft of a tau-cross in Florence. The four sections cannot have belonged to the same object, such as a crozier shaft. They are stylistically close, if not by the same hand, but may have emanated from different types of objects. It has been suggested that they came from a 'flabellum' or 'aspersorium' handle (Longhurst, 1927). The shaft of more than one crozier or tau-cross remains the most plausible original context.

This is an ivory section of a staff or handle made ca. 1170-80 in England or Plantagenet domain (France). This object is in cylindrical shape with a variety of beasts, roughly grouped by type. The staff is divided into 7 registers with 3 squares to each tier. The tiers are grouped in pairs and divided by beaded strips.
This cylindrical section has been associated with three other pieces of comparable scale and design (Metropolitan, NY / British Museum / Louvre) and the shaft of a tau-cross in Florence. The four sections cannot have belonged to the same object, although similar in size and design. They very likely come from different objects, like a crozier or tau-cross.

373-1871