Gothic ivory gravoir, with two figures

An image of Sculpture. Gravoir, probably used as a back scratcher or hair parter. A long curved ivory instrument tapering to a point. The handle is carved with two little figures: the man wears a pointed hood and a tunic with short hanging sleeves. His right arm is around the shoulders of the woman, who has long plaits and wears a high-waisted dress. Her left arm is clasped round his waist. The front of these figures is well-worn. A narrow band of ornament extends around the base of the handle. Height, whole, 32.2 cm, width, whole, 2.7 cm, circa 1270-1430. French. Gothic, Medieval.

Terms of use

The low-resolution images published on this Website are made available under a Creative Commons Attribution licence (CC BY-NC-ND). For more details: Fitzwilliam Terms of Use

This licence does not include any images of works that are still in copyright. Artistic copyright extends from the life of the artist to 70 years from the end of the calendar year in which the artist died.

Download this image

For further information on use of images or to license a high resolution version, please contact our image library who can discuss terms and fees.

Sculpture. Gravoir, probably used as a back scratcher or hair parter. A long curved ivory instrument tapering to a point. The handle is carved with two little figures: the man wears a pointed hood and a tunic with short hanging sleeves. His right arm is around the shoulders of the woman, who has long plaits and wears a high-waisted dress. Her left arm is clasped round his waist. The front of these figures is well-worn. A narrow band of ornament extends around the base of the handle. Height, whole, 32.2 cm, width, whole, 2.7 cm, circa 1270-1430. French. Gothic, Medieval.

Image data

Accession Number: M.1-1919
Photograph copyright © The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.
Aperture: f/27.0
Focal length: 80
Camera: Hasselblad H3DII-31
Photographer name: Amy Jugg
Image height: 1025 pixels
Image width: 323 pixels
Processed with: Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5.4 (Windows)
Filesize: 92.25kB
Exposure time: 1/60
ISO Speed: 200
Fnumber: 27/1
Captured: 2013:01:18 15:49:12

Key words

13th Century 14th Century back scratcher beloved carved clothes clothing costume couple courting courtship female figures Fitz_AA French Gothic gravoir instruments ivory love lovers male Medieval sculpture secular

Citation for print

This page can be cited in the Harvard Bibliographic style using the text below:


            The Fitzwilliam Museum (2026)
            "Gothic ivory gravoir, with two figures"
            Web page available at: https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/id/image/media-205957 Accessed: 2026-01-14 00:22:06

Citation for Wikipedia

To cite this page on Wikipedia you can use this code snippet:


            {{cite web|url=https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/id/image/media-205957
            |title=Gothic ivory gravoir, with two figures
            |author=The Fitzwilliam Museum|accessdate=2026-01-14 00:22:06|publisher=The
            University of Cambridge}}

API call for this record

To call these data via our API (remember this needs to be authenticated) you can use this code snippet:

https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/api/v1/images/media-205956

Bootstrap HTML code for reuse

To use this as a simple code embed, copy this string:

<div class="text-center">
    <figure class="figure">
        <img src="https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/imagestore/aa/aa37/m_1_1919_1_201301_amt49_dc2.jpg"
        alt="Gravoir"
        class="img-fluid" />
        <figcaption class="figure-caption text-info">Gothic ivory gravoir, with two figures</figcaption>
    </figure>
</div>