Old Master Sculpture & Works of Art

Old Master Sculpture & Works of Art

View full screen - View 1 of Lot 13. ITALIAN, PROBABLY VENICE, 15TH/ 16TH CENTURY | CASKET WITH GEOMETRICAL PATTERNS.

ITALIAN, PROBABLY VENICE, 15TH/ 16TH CENTURY | CASKET WITH GEOMETRICAL PATTERNS

Auction Closed

December 3, 02:41 PM GMT

Estimate

18,000 - 25,000 GBP

Lot Details

Description

ITALIAN, PROBABLY VENICE, 15TH/ 16TH CENTURY

CASKET WITH GEOMETRICAL PATTERNS


bone, horn and wood intarsia, on a later ebonised wood core with metal hinges, lined with velvet on the interior

15 by 42 by 30.5cm., 6 by 16½ by 12in.

This beautifully decorated, large casket showcases the Islamic-inspired intarsia technique. Specialist workshops existed in the Spanish cities of Cordoba and Granada and then flourished in Northern Italy from the 14th century, most famously in Venice, where Baldassare Ubriachi led the production of such works around 1400, with the addition of figural reliefs in bone. The present casket is composed wholly of geometrical patterns and, as such, is more difficult to place within a precise milieu. A closely comparable star-shaped pattern, as well as the cursive chequerboard, are seen in a casket published in Lorenzelli (op. cit., fig. 331), there dated to the 15th century. However, a casket in the Victoria and Albert Museum showing similar patterns (inv. no. 936-1904) has most recently been given a dating of around 1550, on account of the design appearing on a lute in the same museum (inv. no. 193-1882), whose maker is known to have been active in Venice in the middle of the 16th century.


RELATED LITERATURE

P. Lorenzelli and A. Veca (eds.), Tra/E: Teche, pissidi, cofani e forzieri dall'Alto Medioevo al Barocco, Bergamo, 1984, pp. 258-265