'...mes taules d’ivoire entailliés' – Late medieval secular ivories

• Applicant: Dr. Svea Janzen
• Subject Area: Art History
• Term: since 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 539459892

In the 13th-14th centuries, new trade routes from West Africa caused a flowering of French ivory carving. In addition to religious works, about 800 secular objects are preserved, including relief-decorated boxes, mirrors and combs with courtly, amorous motifs. Although no other medium of medieval European art contains such an extensive corpus of profane works, these ivories have hardly been researched. The project sees this singular body of works as a key to understanding the material culture of late medieval elites and to critically examining the attribute "secular." It has five goals: 1. Research will be conducted into why numerous objects of secular use and decoration were created in the medium of ivory in particular. For this purpose, the material iconology since antiquity as well as connections to ivories from Byzantium and the Islamic regions are examined in a temporally and culturally broad framework. The hypothesis is that ivory has always been perceived as particularly sensual, and in France in the 13th century it encountered a fitting subject: courtly love which had previously been negotiated in texts. Perceived as skin-like and at the same time chaste, ivory was ideally suited to materialize courtly love in the form of small-format luxury objects. 2. The objects are examined from the perspective of a longue durée according to their function. While previous research has only focused on the motifs on secular ivories, their appeal is explained here for the first time on the basis of the interplay between material, object and decoration. 3. New knowledge about the recipients of secular ivories is gained through source studies. Contrary to previous assumptions, these included not only aristocratic women, but also men and increasingly urban circles. 4. Quantitative analyses of datings and object measurements will show that the market for ivories differentiated in the 14th century: objects of different material value targeted different groups of buyers, allowing urban elites to participate in the originally courtly ivory fashion. 5. The definition of the term "secular" for the arts of the Middle Ages is problematized and formed for the first time. While research usually derives the secular nature of an object from its decoration, here the function of the object is considered determinant. The intertwining of the spheres of what is considered "sacred" or "secular" is analyzed. The study of secular ivories and their conditions of origin aims to open up a deeper understanding of pre-modern luxury culture and to discuss anew both the viability of the concepts and the demarcations between the so-called "sacred" and "profane". With recourse to a methodological repertoire ranging from source studies to style critique to statistical surveys, and by reading together material, object, and decoration, a contribution is made to the history of medieval art and its methods as well as to material and object studies.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants