This marriage casket, made in Italy, probably Venice in about 1420-1440 is of silver fir wood, enriched with 'alla certosina' marquetry and covered with bone plaque and depicts the Story of Susanna.
Susanna was an appropriate exemplar of female virtue and chastity for a wedding gift such as this. However the narrative here is degenerated to the point where much of the story is very schematic or incoherent. Additionally the casket is executed rather unappealing and clumsily throughout.
The derivative group of caskets to which the present example belongs may have been produced in the Embriachi workshop in the years before its definite dissolution in 1433, perhaps after the deaths of Baldassare Ubriachi and the head of the workshop Giovanni di Jacopo. If this is the case, then it illustrates the gradual decline of the workshop’s standards. It is also possible, however, that the group represents the output of local imitators, who used the workshop's Susanna caskets as models for their own productions.

The Embriachi workshop was a north Italian family of entrepreneurs and carvers. The precise location of the workshop is unknown, except that it originated in Florence and in ca. 1431 there was apparently a workshop in Venice, in the area of S Luca.
They employed local workers specialising in 'certosina' (inlay of stained woods, bone and horn), and the workshop produced items carved in bone (usually horse or ox) with wood and bone marquetry. As well as altarpieces, the workshop also made caskets as bridal gifts to hold jewels or documents, and these were often decorated with scenes from mythology.