Among the many fictions which were founded on the traditions of king Arthur none were more common or better known than those which related the love adventures of Lancelot and queen Guinevre; and of Tristan and Isoude, the queen of Mark king of Cornwall. Subjects from both these tales are frequent on ivory caskets and mirror cases. The disgrace of Aristotle comes from the romance of Alexander; and from that of Virgil we have the poet in his mediæval character of magician. Both the poet and the philosopher, in spite of their great age and wisdom, are made fools of by the ladies of the story. One is induced to carry his mistress on his back, the other is hauled up in a basket to a window and left there dangling at sunrise before all the people.
We must not leave caskets without mention of the very graceful open work with which the panels of many of them were often decorated, and which have come down to us (speaking generally) only in parts or fragments. Two woodcuts are given here, full size, from a series of small panels, formerly in the Meyrick collection, which is, unhappily, now dispersed.
The South Kensington museum is rich also in the marriage coffers, as they are commonly called, of Italian work of about the fourteenth century. Coffers of this kind, such, for example, as the small casket (in the two woodcuts) no. 2563, were seldom executed in ivory: almost always in bone of fine quality, sometimes nearly equal to ivory in delicacy of grain and colour. It is probably owing to their general use in Italy at that time that ivory could not be obtained in sufficient quantity, except at great cost; for the workmanship is frequently that of artists who must have been of the highest eminence as sculptors. One of the most interesting of the marriage caskets in the South Kensington museum is no. 5624, formerly in the Soulages collection, of which there is almost a duplicate in the public library at Paris.
Lenormant, in the Trésor de glyptique, has given three plates of the Paris casket and says also that another, exactly like it was (when he wrote) in the possession of M. D’Assy, of Meaux.
The largest casket of this kind in England is in the possession of Mr. Julian Goldsmid. It is in excellent preservation and well finished in every respect. The size is certainly unusual: two feet three inches in height, two feet and a half long, and two feet broad. The separate bones which ornament it are filled with shields and armorial bearings; ten on the front and back, seven on each side. The mouldings at the top are richly decorated with bold scrolls of foliage and animals. The top of the coffer and the side mouldings are marquetry, inlaid in diamond-shaped quarries with large pieces of bone.