Owning Gothic Ivories: Buying, Giving, Circulating

Over the last three decades, research on Gothic ivories has seen a significant shift from studies concerned with stylistic attribution and classification towards the investigation of their materiality, iconography, function, and patronage. Although we now have a much better understanding of the social, devotional, and cultural contexts in which religious ivories, in particular, were commissioned and produced, overall, we still know comparatively little about the owners of Gothic ivories. This is especially true for the secular sphere, where it has not yet been possible to link any surviving fourteenth-century carvings to its first owner.

This conference aims revisit the question of the ownership of Gothic ivories, an area which offers great potential for further discoveries, particularly through the combination of art historical object analysis with evaluations of contemporary written sources such as inventories, wills, and other documents. Illuminating the stories of historic owners, be they individuals or institutions, and their Gothic ivories is the first aim of this two-day conference, while the second is to shed light on the later life of these objects, and on their transition into new ownership contexts and uses.

Organised by Manuela Studer-Karlen (University of Bern), Naomi Speakman (British Museum, London) and Michaela Zöschg (Victoria and Albert Museum, London).

This is part of a two-day conference, with Day 1 being hosted at the British Museum, Stevenson Lecture Theatre, Great Russell Street, London, from 10.00 - 17.00 on Friday 25 October. To book tickets for Day 1, please visit the British Museum event page.

This conference is supported by the project "Love and War. Secular images on Gothic Ivories", funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation.