This thesis centres on the Late Antique and Byzantine ivories which were once part of the collection of Liverpool jeweller and antiquarian Joseph Mayer (1803-1886). These ten ivories form an object-based case-study for a wider investigation into British nineteenth-century responses to Byzantine art and culture. The main questions to be addressed are: why did Mayer collect these ivories and what art historical meaning did Mayer, his circle and the wider British and European scholarly world attach to them?