After an introductory summary on early ivories, the author surveys the art of ivory carving in Europe through the centuries: from Byzantine to Gothic, a style in which at first French artists were supreme, and which persisted through the 14th and 15th centuries; from Gothic to the international art of the 16th to the 18th centuries, when German work was the most abundant and maintained the highest quality, while the work of Italian craftsmen exerted an important influence. Dr. Beigbeder, a leading French authority on the subject, discusses the themes used by ivory carvers and their symbolism, observing, for instance, the development of the crude fertility symbols of prehistory into the more sophisticated religious art of classical Greece and, in turn, the more direct transformation of themes devoted to the cult of Venus to the adoration of the Virgin. While examining the diptychs and triptychs, crucifixes and figures of the Virgin and Child of religious art, he does not neglect the secular, or purely utilitarian uses of ivory -- knife handles, goblets, combs, mirror cases, caskets, chessmen and, more unusually, saddles and even shoes. The illustrations, 32 pages in color and 100 pictures in black and white, reveal both the beauty of the material and the exquisite workmanship of the ivory carver. Many have been specially photographed for this book in museums and collections throughout Europe and in the United States. Out of print, but we generally have several copies available for $38 (or less, depending on condition).