Casket

Discussion

FROM THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO’S CATALOG

Given to noble or merchant-class brides in honor of a betrothal or wedding, small caskets such as this were used as keepsake boxes to house jewelry and other important mementos. The sides were often carved with emblematic scenes to entertain the recipient bride. The narratives portrayed on this casket are haphazardly mixed including a stag hunt, an abducted maiden, and a scene with a figure crawling out of an eagle. Some of these are taken from popular contemporary romances Mattabruna and Il pecorone (The Golden Eagle) among other sources. This incoherent mix of stories is due to modern restoration that has haphazardly adapted plaques from another casket or caskets by the same workshop to fill losses. On the lid are two kite-shaped shields—though blank, these were meant to be painted with the coats-of-arms of the two families joined in marriage, a means of personalizing the object after purchase. Beginning in the 1370s, caskets like this, as well as private altarpieces, were manufactured in numbers at a workshop owned by a noble Florentine entrepreneur and diplomat, Baldassare degli Embriachi. After about 1395, the Embriachi family and its workshop moved operations to Venice where

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