Ivory Box with Equestrian Falconers in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, February 2010

Ivory Box with Equestrian Falconers
Paint and copper alloy mounts
South Italian, Sicily
Carved 1200-1300

Accession # 55.29.2

Hunting scenes decorate a number of surviving cylindrical boxes made in Sicily. This box, depicting a falcon hunt, shows richly attired men on horseback. The sport was favored by the Holy Roman emperor Frederick II Hohenstaufen (r. 1215-50), who wrote a definitive guide on the care and use of falcons in the hunt.

Text from the Metropolitan Museum of Art label.