Pesquisando por: "TO PARIS WITH LOVE" - Fotoarena - Agência de fotojornalismo

alb3634184 Writing table (bureau plat). Culture: French, Paris. Dimensions: H. 31-3/4 x W. 69-1/4 x D. 36 in. (80.6 x 175.9 x 91.4 cm). Maker: Gilles Joubert (French, ca. 1689-1775). Date: 1759.In his Useful Hints to Those Who Make the Tour of France, which appeared in 1768, Philip Thicknesse (1719-1792) expressed the opinion that Louis XV would have made a much better country gentleman than a sovereign prince, since he loved the diversions of country life and seldom went to Paris.[1] It is not surprising, then, that the king spent much of his time at Versailles, where daily business was conducted in his Cabinet Intérieur. This small study, its windows overlooking the palace courtyard below, was one of the most beautiful rooms of his private apartment. On December 29, 1759, Gilles Joubert supplied this writing table, a so-called bureau plat, or flat-topped desk, lacquered in brilliant crimson and with pseudo-Asian landscape scenes in gold for the king's use in the Cabinet Intérieur. The surface decoration imitates red and gold Chinese lacquer, which was fashionable in France as veneer for furniture in the middle of the eighteenth century. Joubert, who had been appointed cabinetmaker to the Garde-Meuble de la Couronne in 1758 and became cabinetmaker to the king in 1763, had a long and successful career that included numerous royal commissions. In fact, he received so many orders from the Crown that he often needed the assistance of other craftsmen to fulfill them.The partly pierced gilt-bronze mounts not only emphasize the graceful curving lines of the writing table but also protect and frame the lustrous lacquered surface. The flat top, originally lined with black velvet, allowed the king and his ministers to spread out a multitude of documents and unfold maps. The bureau plat remained in the same room under Louis XV's grandson and successor, Louis XVI, until December 1786, when it was replaced by a new marquetry writing table by Guillaume Benneman (d. 1811). Joubert's piece was passed along to the king's brother, the comte de Provence, later Louis XVIII, for whom it was restored in 1787. The writing table stayed at Versailles until the Revolutionary sales of royal property in 1793-94.[Daniëlle Kisluk-Grosheide, 2010][1] Thicknesse 1768, p. 67. Museum: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA.

alb3653398 Wall clock (pendule en cartel). Culture: French, Paris. Dimensions: Overall: 52 1/2 × 24 1/2 × 15 1/2 in. (133.4 × 62.2 × 39.4 cm). Maker: Clockmaker: Jean Godde l'aîné (French, ca. 1668-1748/49); Case maker: Charles Cressent (French, Amiens 1685-1768 Paris). Date: ca. 1740-45.The theme of this magnificent Rococo wall clock with its asymmetrical design is the triumph of love over time. As the son of a sculptor and grandson of an ébéniste, Charles Cressent, who made the case, combined the talents of both and created not only outstanding case furniture but also highly imaginative sculpture in the form of bronzes d'ameublement. Firedogs, clock cases, wall lights, and mounts for furniture were cast and finished in his workshop, violating the rules of the bronze casters' and bronze gilders' guilds, to which Cressent, as a furniture maker, did not belong. As a result, three times during his life, legal proceedings were brought against him for employing casters, chasers, and gilders in his workshops. Financial difficulties forced him to organize three sales of his possessions, the first of which was held in 1749. The catalogues for these sales included detailed descriptions of the offered works, which allow the identification of certain clock models. Lot 25 of the 1749 catalogue, for instance, seems identical in its design to the Museum's clock, of which several other examples are extant. The description mentions the winged putto, symbolizing love, at the cresting, seated on clouds and resting his elbow on an hourglass, while Father Time with his scythe reclines on the chaos of the world below. Also noted are the two large trees that frame the case and the fact that everything was beautifully chased and gilded. There is no reference to the sides of the clock case. They are veneered with marquetry of tortoiseshell and brass, so-called Boulle work, showing that Cressent was a master cabinetmaker as well. The movement is signed "Jean Godde L'aisné A Paris." Godde was one of several makers of clocks or watches by that name, and little is known about him. Museum: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA.

alb3613939 Washstand (athénienne or lavabo). Culture: French, Paris. Designer: Design attributed to Charles Percier (French, Paris 1764-1838 Paris). Dimensions: Height: 36 3/8 in. (92.4 cm); Diameter: 19 1/2 in. (49.5 cm). Maker: Gilt bronze mounts by Martin-Guillaume Biennais (French, 1764-1843, active ca. 1796-1819). Date: 1800-1814.The form of this elegant washstand ultimately derives from the ancient Greco-Roman three-legged perfume burner or brazier, of which the designer Charles Percier had made some study. The decoration reflects his familiarity with the wall decorations in the emperor Nero's Golden House and their adaptation in Raphael's Logge in the Vatican. A reappreciation during the Renaissance of the tripod as a luxury item of the utmost refinement is documented as early as 1499 by an example illustrated in Francesco Colonna's Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, published in Venice that year.[1] A further not-to-be-underestimated influence on Percier was Neoclassical paintings illustrating ancient Greek mythology, such as The Loves of Paris and Helen, commissioned from Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825) by the comte d'Artois in 1788.[2] The designer was also familiar with the richly illustrated seven-volume Recueil d'antiquités (1752-67) by the comte de Caylus (1692-1765),[3] and the Recueil et parallèle des édi fices by Jean-Nicolas-Louis Durand (1760-1834), published between 1799 and 1801 in Paris, in which plate 25 was devoted to tripod forms, among other types of Roman objects.[4]The shape of the base and of the shelf--triangular with canted sides--can be traced back to a famous antique Roman tripod named after the French antiquarian Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peirese (1580-1637).[5] Percier was probably also acquainted with the athénienne designed about 1773 by Jean-Henri Eberts (acc. no. 1993.355.1), which has the same type of base.The long-accepted attribution of the design of this athénienne to Charles Percier, the imaginative friend of Pierre-François-Léonard Fontaine (1762-1853), who in partnership with Fontaine dominated interior design in France during the Empire period, is based on its close similarity to a large colored drawing ascribed to Percier now in the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris.[6] The maker of the Museum's piece, Martin-Guillaume Biennais, was perhaps the most accomplished goldsmith and entrepreneur of his time in France (see also acc. no. 26.168.77). He owed his economic success to the dissolution of the mighty Parisian guilds, the grandes corporations, which had controlled the activity of all craftsmen and artisans during the ancien régime. Like other skillful young goldsmiths he found himself free after the Revolution to explore business opportunities without corporate obstacles and turned his back on the outdated privileges and jealousies of the habitually conservative former guild masters. One of seven children, Biennais was born into a simple laboring family in 1764. Four decades later, he headed the most important goldsmith's and jeweler's firm in continental Europe. His inventive traveling sets and ostentatious tableware found favor not only with the emperor and his entourage but also with the swarm of nouveaux riches and self-made men who flourished in prosperous post-Revolutionary France.[7] Biennais's products were smartly promoted on his business card of 1806. It shows at the left in an architectural niche a fashionable tripod, most likely a perfume burner or brazier, crowned by a swan with spread wings.[8]There is an iron plate on the underside of the triangular shelf between the legs of the Museum's example. This served as an attachment for a lost, hanging bell-shaped ornament decorated with a stylized acanthus-and-acorn motif. How the bell hung down over the stand can be seen in another version of this model in Fontainebleau.[9] The unusually formed, bold ormolu mount would have shifted the eye slightly toward the gilt-metal parts below, creating a better balance between the warm-colored wood and gilded bronze mounts and the sparkling, moonlight-cold look of the silver basin and ewer (both missing from the Museum's piece). Several simpler washstands are recorded in inventories of Napoleon's palaces.[10]Percier's athénienne is known in three versions: the above-mentioned example at Fontainebleau, which has a probably not original dark, patinated metal basin (the ewer is lost); the present piece; and the famous personal washstand of Napoleon, today at the Musée du Louvre, Paris.[11] Napoleon kept it in his bedroom at the Palais des Tuileries, where he settled early in 1800, the year in which he commissioned the stand. It was one of the few personal luxury items that accompanied the emperor into exile at Saint Helena.Like Napoleon's washstand, this example is decorated with masterfully executed dolphins and swans, both graceful allusions to Napoleon as the rightful successor of the Sun King, Louis XIV. The firstborn son of each French ruler was called the "Dauphin," a word that also means dolphin. That jolly sea-dweller and also the winged sea creatures on the frieze around the triangular shelf suggest the Mediterranean, which forms the southern border of France and surrounds the island of Corsica, the birthplace of Napoleon.[12] The swan, which was believed to utter a beautiful song at the time of its death, was associated with Apollo, god of music, with whom Louis XIV identified himself. The swan is also a symbol of beauty and of parental solicitude. At the approach of danger, with feathers puffed up and anxiously hissing, these birds protect their young within the wall of their white wings. Napoleon's consort, Josephine, and her children were frequently compared to a swan and its cygnets.[13] The swan was chosen as her symbol by Claude, wife of Francis I, the French Renaissance king whom Napoleon greatly admired.The Museum's athénienne was certainly made for a close friend or relative of the emperor. It is a superior example of the new Empire style, through which Napoleon, with the aid of leading artisans, tried to emulate the lavish decors of the ancien régime, modified by the classical restraint and formality of the art of the caesars of ancient Rome. Empire furniture of such superbly calculated plan and proportions may express better than anything else the confidence, fresh ideas, and energy of the age.[Wolfram Koeppe 2006]Footnotes:[1] Peter Thornton. The Italian Renaissance Interior, 1400-1600. New York, 1991, p. 212, pl. 240.[2] Jacques-Louis David, 1748-1825. Exh. cat., Musée du Louvre, Paris, and Musée National du Château, Versailles. Paris, 1989, pp. 184-88, no. 79; and Anne Dion-Tenenbaum. L'orfèvre de Napoléon: Martin-Guillaume Biennais. Exh. cat., Musée du Louvre. Les dossiers due Musée du Louvre. Paris, 2003, p. 20, fig. 9.[3] Claudio Paolini, Alessandra Ponte, and Ornella Selvafolta. Il bello "ritrovato": Gusto, ambienti, mobili dell'Ottocento. Novara, 1990, p. 30.[4] John Morley. The History of Furniture: Twenty-five Centuries of Style and Design in the Western Tradition. Boston, 1999, p. 17, fig. 10 (dated 1802); and D'après l'antique. Exh. cat., Musée du Louvre. Paris, 2000, p. 345, no. 159 (entry by Anne Dion-Tenenbaum).[5] For the Peirese tripod, see John Morley. The History of Furniture: Twenty-five Centuries of Style and Design in the Western Tradition. Boston, 1999, p. 25, fig. 27.[6] Anne Dion-Tenenbaum. L'orfèvre de Napoléon: Martin-Guillaume Biennais. Exh. cat., Musée du Louvre. Les dossiers due Musée du Louvre. Paris, 2003, pp. 19-20, no. 2; in this excellent study Dion-Tenenbaum discusses the evolution of the tripod form in great detail.[7] Ibid., pp. 11-17.[8] Ibid., p. 14, fig. 3.[9] The third known version of this model, in the Musée du Louvre, Paris, has an identical iron plate, but the pendent bell ornament has been lost. On this washstand, see below at n. 11. For the second version, at Fontainebleau, see Anne Dion-Tenenbaum. L'orfèvre de Napoléon: Martin-Guillaume Biennais. Exh. cat., Musée du Louvre. Les dossiers due Musée du Louvre. Paris, 2003, pp. 23-24, no. 4.[10] For example, "une athénienne dorée beau bois d'acajou, pot et jatte dorés" (a gilded athénienne of mahogany, the ewer and bowl gilded) and another with gilded ewer and bowl decorated with palmettes; Archives Nationales, Paris, O2 55.[11] For Napoleon's washstand, see R., G., and C. Ledoux-Lebard. "L'inventaire des appartements de l'empereur Napoléon Ier aux Tuileries." Bulletin de la Société de l'Histoire de l'Art Français, 1952 (pub. 1953), p. 200, no. 872; D'après l'antique. Exh. cat., Musée du Louvre. Paris, 2000, pp. 346-47, no. 160 (entry by Anne Dion-Tenenbaum); Anne Dion-Tenenbaum. L'orfèvre de Napoléon: Martin-Guillaume Biennais. Exh. cat., Musée du Louvre. Les dossiers due Musée du Louvre. Paris, 2003, pp. 21-22, no. 3; Gail Feigenbaum. Jefferson's America and Napoleon's France: An Exhibition for the Louisiana Purchase Bicentennial. Exh. cat., New Orleans Museum of Art. New Orleans, 2003, p. 71, no. 47 (entry by David O'Brien); and Elke Pastré. "Der Goldschmied Napoleons." Weltkunst 73 (December 2003), p. 2109, fig. 4.[12] A Greek mosaic found on the island of Delos is decorated with dolphins and the same wavelike Vitruvian scroll ornament that encircles the upper ring of the basin holder of the Museum's washstand. For the mosaic, see Pierre Arizzoli-Clémental. "Néoclassicisme." In L'art décoratif en Europe, ed. Alain Gruber, vol. 3, Du Néoclassicisme à l'Art Déco, pp. 21-127. Paris, 1994, p. 62.[13] James David Draper, with Clare Le Corbeiller. The Arts under Napoleon: An Exhibition of the Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts, with Loans from the Audrey B. Love Foundation and Other New York Collections. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1978, p. [4]. On the symbolism of swans, see James Hall. Dictionary of Subjects and Symbols in Art. Rev. ed. New York, 1979, p. 294. Museum: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA.

alb3613574 Monumental vase. Culture: probably Italian, Florence and French, Paris. Dimensions: Overall: H. with pedestal 109 1/4 in., Wt. 1575lb. (277.5 cm, 714.4153kg); Vase: H. without pedestal 63 3/4 x Circum. at top 54 x Circum. at bottom 30 (161.9 x 137.2 x 76.2 cm); Pedestal: H. 45 1/2 x W. 37 1/2 x D. 37 1/2 in. (115.6 x 95.3 x 95.3 cm). Maker: Pedestal and mounts by Pierre Philippe Thomire (French, Paris 1751-1843 Paris). Date: lapidary work: early 19th century; pedestal and mounts: 1819.Malachite is a carbonate mineral often associated with copper ores. As explained by Jeffrey Post, it "grows in layers of tiny crystals, and its colors correlate with different crystal sizes: smaller crystals form light green bands and larger crystals make darker ones."[1] In the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, most malachite came from mines in Russia owned by the noble Demidov family, who exploited hardstone quarries and metal deposits on their estates in the remote Ural Mountains. One of the great discoveries in the history of semiprecious stones occurred in the 1820s, when an enormous boulder of malachite weighing about five hundred tons was unearthed in the Urals.[2] A schistose material, malachite is extremely brittle, and only small display objects can be cut from single blocks of this rock. Large objects require a core structure, to which the malachite can be attached in thin pieces. Russian craftsmen perfected a way of utilizing the stone's natural pattern and a precision cutting technique to form a continuing or, on the round body of a vase, an "endless" ornament. This type of veneer, called "Russian mosaic," looks almost seamless.[3]The Demidovs used the showy appearance of malachite to increase their social status. They filled their palaces and decorated a whole room in one of them with the green stone, inspiring Czar Nicolas I to commission the famous Malachite Room in the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg.[4]The Metropolitan Museum's vase is modeled on one type of ancient Roman bell-shaped krater, the most famous example of which is the first-century Medici Vase, now in the Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence. The form was much admired in the early nineteenth century.[5] Count Nikolai Demidov commissioned this monumental example for his villa at San Donato, near Florence. From a distance, the malachite veneer seems to be of the Russian mosaic type. Closer inspection reveals an uneven use of the stone that differs considerably from Russian work; moreover, large areas of the surface are composed of small malachite particles mixed with filling substance in the manner of modern terrazzo. Demidov probably had the raw malachite transported from one of his mines to Florence. There it would have been shaped and finished by local artists, who were not trained in the specialized Russian technique, and afterwards sent on to Paris to be fitted with its mounts and pedestal. In an essay on the vase by this author published in 2006, the Italian, perhaps Florentine, origin of the lapidary work was suggested for the first time.[6] Although it initiated a spirited discussion, this new attribution has not--to the author's knowledge--been questioned in a written review. The presence in this exhibition of an undisputed masterwork of Russian mosaic in malachite, the Stroganov Tazza (The State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg, E 6721), offers an opportunity to compare the veneer on these two closely related objects and, it is hoped, to resolve any lingering questions about their manufacture.The winged female figures in gilded bronze mounted on the body of the vase represent Fame. Their trumpets are shaped like handles--something of a paradox, since the object is far too heavy to be lifted like a loving cup. A gilded bronze garland of laurel runs under the lip mount. This evergreen plant, Laurus nobilis, had been adopted by Lorenzo de' Medici, who was also a lavish patron of the arts,[7] as an emblem of his house, together with the motto "Ita ut virtus," or "Thus is virtue"-- that is to say, virtue is evergreen. Evergreen too, is the precious stone that embellishes this vase. It seems that Coutn Demidov wished for his own family both virtue and an "evergreen" fortune. Pierre-Philippe Thomire (1751-1843), who made the mounts and bronze pedestal and signed the latter, was known throughout Europe for his bronze decorations and ornamental sculpture. Before the French Revolution, he established a reputation with his beautiful mounts for Sèvres porcelain vases. In 1804 he founded a workshop that produced furniture as well as luxury bronzes.[8][Wolfram Koeppe 2008]Footnotes:[1] Jeffrey E. Post. The National Gem Collection. National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution. New York, 1997, pp. 132-33.[2] Natalya Guseva. "Kunsthandwerk und Manufakturen in Russland um 1800." In St. Petersburg um 1800 1990, p. 90.[3] Ibid.; see also Audrey Kennett. The Palaces of Leningrad. New York, 1973, p. 41.[4] Audrey Kennett. The Palaces of Leningrad. New York, 1973, p. 41.[5] Louis-Étienne-François Héricart de Thury. Rapport du Jury d'Admission des Produits de l'Industrie du Département de la Seine, à l'Exposition du Louvre, comprenant une notice statistique sur ces produits. [France], 1819, p. 80, no. 1; Hans Ottomeyer. "The Metamorphosis of the Neoclassical Vase." In McCormick and Ottomeyer 2004, p. 16.[6] Wolfram Koeppe in Daniëlle O. Kisluk-Grosheide, Wolfram Koeppe, and William Rieder. European Furniture in The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Highlights of the Collection. New York, 2006, pp. 224-26, no. 94.[7] James Hall. Dictionary of Subjects and Symbols in Art. Rev. ed. New York, 1979, p. 190.[8] This entry is largely based on Wolfram Koeppe in Daniëlle O. Kisluk-Grosheide, Wolfram Koeppe, and William Rieder. European Furniture in The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Highlights of the Collection. New York, 2006, pp. 224-26, no. 94. As always, I am grateful to Marina Nudel, Senior Research Associate, Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts, Metropolitan Museum, for her advice. Museum: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA.

alb3642982 Mantel clock (pendule de cheminée). Culture: French, Paris. Designer: Designed by François Joseph Belanger (French, Paris 1744-1818 Paris). Dimensions: Overall: 21 × 21 1/2 × 6 1/4 in. (53.3 × 54.6 × 15.9 cm). Maker: and Pierre Henry, called Henry Lepaute (1749-1806); Case attributed to Pierre Gouthière (French, Bar-sur-Aube 1732-1813/14 Paris); Movement by the workshop of Jean-Baptiste Lepaute (French, 1727-1802). Modeler: Possibly by Louis Simon Boizot (French, Paris 1743-1809 Paris). Date: ca. 1783.Capturing daily life in the French capital on the eve of the Revolution, the playwright Louis-Sébastien Mercier (1740-1814) observed in Tableau de Paris: "Every chimney-piece has its clock; a pity, I think; a dismal fashion. Nothing is more dreary to contemplate than a clock; you watch your life ebbing, the pendulum ticks off each second that is yours only as it passes, and then is yours no more. Clocks are everywhere, in every room you see them, and apparently nobody finds them disturbing, though they mark most mercilessly the flight of the hours; clocks like little temples, or with domes of gilded bronze, or perhaps globes of white marble, with figures running round like an equator.. Luxury has run the whole gamut of imagination in devising these superfluous splendours, it can go no further; and since they are quite useless, and not even pleasing to the eye, the waste of money in such futile expenditure is heartbreaking."[1]Would Mercier have been equally critical of the Museum's timepiece, its movement resting on a tasseled cushion placed on the backs of two winged sphinxes? The cresting of the case alludes to love: a pair of billing doves perches on clouds from which spill flowers, mostly roses and myrtle branches, both sacred to Venus. The sphinxes recline on a white marble base with semicircular ends that are embellished with garlands of fruit and flowers. The recessed tolework panel in front encloses medallions depicting six of the twelve zodiac signs. With their striated wigs, the sphinxes are expressions of the budding interest in a novel form of decoration inspired by art from ancient Egypt. A clock of nearly this exact model was supplied for use in the salon at Bagatelle, the pleasure pavilion built in just sixtythree days for the comte d'Artois, whose sister-in-law Marie-Antoinette had wagered that the work could not be finished in less than three months. The architect Bélanger provided designs not only for the building but also for many of its interior furnishings, which took longer to complete, however. A contemporary document pertaining to the Bagatelle clock provides a date of 1783, gives the name of the designer Bélanger, and identifies Pierre Gouthière, an exceptionally fine bronze worker, as the chaser and gilder. Gouthière was known for a special type of gilding with a matte finish that creates a lively effect when set next to burnished areas, as seen on the Museum's clock. The movement is by the Lepaute workshop, a distinguished firm of clockmakers consisting of various family members by that name, which appears on the dial.[1] Mercier 1781-88/1999, pp. 228-29. Museum: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA.

alb4479321 Folding fan with paper sheet on which 'The Judgment of Paris', on a frame of mother-of-pearl lace and embossed with 'metal and quatre couleur', Folding fan with paper sheet on which 'Gouache' Judgment of Paris', on a frame of mother-of-pearl lace and embossed with 'metal and quatre couleur'. In a particularly finely painted central field, the king's son and shepherd Paris designate the goddess Aphrodite as the winner of the beauty contest fought between her and the goddesses Athena and Hera. Hera with the peacock and Athena with helmet and shield watching from a cloud in the distance. The story about 'The Judgment of Paris' that dates back to the 1st century AD. was recorded by Lucian of Samosata (ca. 120-180 AD), was published many times in Dutch translations in the course of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. With Van Mander (1548-1606), Krul (1601 / 2-1646) and Poot (1689-1733) it got a moralizing tone and Paris was a light-hearted young man who preferred the sensuous pleasures (Aphrodite) to wisdom (Athena) and the power (Hera). In another interpretation, the story was used as a praise for the woman who brought together all the qualities that Paris had to choose from. It seems as if the medallions on the left and right have been hung on twisted cords, which further depend on rings along the edge of the leaf. On top of the frame of these medallions, in which various wedding symbols, such as a wedding altar with two turtledoves and a dog, are two torturing pigeons. These motifs return in the painting on the back. The frame is almost entirely filled by a gallant party with entangled love couples, musicians and singers surrounded by putti with flower garlands. In a oval on the right outer leg a putto with an open mousetrap, the Judgment of Paris (without Mercury), anonymous, Netherlands, c. 1780 - c. 1790, blad, montuur, sluitpin, painting, s 48.5 cm × l 27.5 cm.

alb5148101 Furniture fitting Frau im Fenster, property of the Stiftung Hamburger Kunstsammlungen, ivory, glass, carved, cast, ivory and glass, carved and cast, Total: Height: 5.9 cm; Width: 4.2 cm, reliefs, furniture parts, palace, head, face, A woman's head en face, coiffed according to Egyptian fashion, decorated with rich head and ear ornaments, looking down from a rectangular window above a columned balustrade. The hair, falling behind the ears on both sides, ends in curls just below chin height. Above the forehead a piece of jewelry. Between the window and the column balustrade is a well-preserved rectangular glass inlay, iridescent due to the way it rests on the floor. Two column capitals can be seen with widely projecting volutes and leaf overhanging on slender column shafts. The top plate is stepped. The relief is to be supplemented on the left side by the corresponding missing piece of window and a capital. The woman in the window (Assyrian: Kililu sa apati) is one of the most frequent depictions on furniture ornamental ivory. The goddess of love (Astarte) or Hierodule in the service of the goddess of love was attributed apotrophic powers. According to the previous owner, the relief piece comes from Arslan Tash, an Assyrian border fortress on the upper Euphrates. The ivory cut in high relief belongs to furniture fittings. A resting bed (kline) from the 8th/7th century B.C. with such ornamentation was excavated in Arslan Tasch; other associated ornamental fittings can be found in the Musée du Louvre in Paris and the Badisches Landesmuseum in Karlsruhe. The style of Arslan Tasch's ivories, which some researchers have described as Phoenician, differs from the Assyrian and Syrian groups in its fine pattern, smooth surface treatment and clear Egyptian influences. The latter is usually more awkward in drawing, shows fuller figures and also shows an Egyptian influence.