Ivory Plaque with a Cow Suckling Her Calf
Unknown · Neo-Assyrian period, eighth century BC
A cow stands in profile facing right and turns her head back to lick the calf that feeds beneath her, its tail raised and its legs braced. Plant stems frame the pair on either side. The ivory is under ten centimetres long, yet the modelling of the cow's flank and the calf's eager posture is tender and exact. Gold leaf survives on her nostrils, belly and udder, purple traces mark the calf's hoof and her forehead, and the calf's eye keeps its white inlay. Faint ruled lines on the back were the craftsman's guides for cutting the mortises that fixed the plaque to a piece of furniture.
The cow and calf is one of the most beloved motifs of Phoenician ivory carving, a picture of maternal care that also stood for the fertility of the herds. Several versions of the scene were found together at Arslan Tash, the Assyrian provincial residence at ancient Hadatu in northern Syria, where they had decorated a bed or a chair in the Building of the Ivories. François Thureau-Dangin excavated the site in 1928, and the plaque came to the Louvre in the partage of 1929.
Did You Know? Gold leaf still clings to the cow's udder and nostrils, the parts of the animal the carver most wanted to catch the light.
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