Fragment of an Ivory Plaque with Scrolling Foliage
Unknown · Neo-Assyrian period, eighth century BC
A small square of ivory, six centimetres on each side, is carved with scrolling stems and leaves whose veins are drawn in fine detail. There are no figures, only plants, and the carver enjoyed the chance to render each leaf with its midrib and side veins. The relief is shallow and the surface is smooth and creamy. It is a fragment of a larger panel of vegetation, of the kind that filled the spaces between figured scenes on a piece of furniture or ran as a frieze along its edge.
Vegetable ornament of this type comes from the Syrian tradition of ivory carving, which favoured naturalistic leaves over the stylised palmettes and papyrus of the Phoenician style seen elsewhere in this case. The fragment was found in room fourteen of the Building of the Ivories at Arslan Tash, ancient Hadatu in northern Syria, an Assyrian provincial residence, during the 1928 excavations led by François Thureau-Dangin. It came to the Louvre through the partage of 1929.
Did You Know? Every leaf has its veins carved in, a piece of botanical attention on a scrap of ivory six centimetres wide.
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