El Cid Gallery

Ivory Carving Throughout Time

Ancient Ivories

 The earliest ivory carvings known were made in the Old Stone Age.
The inhabitants of Europe produced great numbers of ivory, bone, and horn carvings, with nude female figures being the most common subject.
Representations of animals occur most often in the subsequent Magdalenian period.
In Egypt the art of ivory and bone carving was developed in predynastic times.
Large numbers of carved figures of men and women, as well as carved combs, hairpins, and handles, have been found in Egyptian tombs.
Egyptian tombs of later date include carved ivory weapon hilts, furniture and caskets inlaid with ivory carvings.

The Minoans in Crete, and later the ancient Greeks, were noted for their ivory carvings.
The Minoans carved small acrobats and snake goddesses.
The Greeks were famous especially in the 5th century for their chryselephantine statues, often of heroic size, in which the flesh was represented in carved ivory and the
hair and garments in sculptured gold.

Medieval Ivories

Ivory carving flourished under the Byzantine Empire.Christian figures, symbols, and scenes were the subjects most often depicted on ivory book covers, icons, boxes, shrines, crosiers, crucifixes, door panels, and thrones.

In Europe during the reigns of Charlemagne and his successors in the 9th and 10th centuries, elaborately carved ivory book covers, reliquaries, and altarpieces were produced.
In the 13th to the 15th century gothic ivories were chiefly religious, as in earlier periods, but were more for private devotions than ecclesiastical use.

Post - renaissance ivories

During the 15th and 16th centuries, ivory carving was not popular, but in the baroque and rococo periods in the 17th and 18th centuries it again came into vogue, especially in Germany and the Netherlands.
German craftsmen were known for richly ornamented ivories; Flemish craftsmen produced statuettes and other sculpture-inspired ivory carvings.
France again became an important ivory-carving center.

Arabic, Far Eastern, and Other Work

In the Far East the best-known ivories are those of India, Japan, and particularly China.
Indians carved figures of their gods and ornate caskets, often imitating Italian styles. Japanese netsukes, small carved purse toggles, are often made of ivory.
The art still flourishes today; objects created include statuettes, chess pieces, fans, screens, toilet articles, chopsticks, and models of buildings and boats.
The Chinese are world famous for their ivory curiosities, particularly the concentric ivory balls carved one inside the other by Cantonese craftsmen.