French, 1300-1400, painted wood, Bernal Coll.

Wood (probably beech), rectangular, of nailed construction (12mm planks), end-lapped, with 3 nails holding the front and back to the base, 2 nails at each end, and with a hinged lid. The casket is painted (oil paint) on the front, back, ends and lid with four pairs of seated tawny lions on green grass energetically gazing in each direction (perhaps suggesting vigilance), on a stamped quatrefoil gilded ground (exposing the red bole in many places). The underneath plain, painted. Small areas of canvas are visible where gesso has worn away. The box mounted with gilt copper alloy straps (nailed around the lid and around each corner), and with U shaped bands running under the box which terminate in fleurs-de-lys and six-petalled flower heads, and fitted with an external lockplate (on replacement nails), and a hinged lid handle formed of 3 concave members with a central bead. The box stands on four feet of flattened six-lobed form (at least one of which appears to be a replacement), which are fastened on a spike and nail. No key. Small areas of retouching and regilding.

The interior gilded, and the inside face of the lid gilded and punched with a repeated crowned cipher (C or G, or T on its side), and in the centre are two arms with crossed hands (perhaps to be read as clasped, for a betrothal), set within a quatrefoil.

The interior of the box plain gilded

Bernal Collection (Given by M.T. Smith, M.P.)

Given from the Bernal Collection by M.T.Smith Esq. M.P.
Dated by Pollen to 15th century.
Lent to the exhibition 'Ich, Maria von Geldern: Die Herzogin und ihr berühmtes Gebetbuch (1380-1429)', Museum Het Valkhof, Nijmegen, 2018-19.

Provenance

Ralph Bernal (1783-1854) was a renowned collector and objects from his collection are now in museums across the world, including the V&A. He was born into a Sephardic Jewish family of Spanish descent, but was baptised into the Christian religion at the age of 22. Bernal studied at Christ's College, Cambridge, and subsequently became a prominent Whig politician. He built a reputation for himself as a man of taste and culture through the collection he amassed and later in life he became the president of the British Archaeological Society. Yet the main source of income which enabled him to do this was the profits from enslaved labour.

In 1811, Bernal inherited three sugar plantations in Jamaica, where over 500 people were eventually enslaved. Almost immediately, he began collecting works of art and antiquities. After the emancipation of those enslaved in the British Caribbean in the 1830s, made possible in part by acts of their own resistance, Bernal was awarded compensation of more than £11,450 (equivalent to over £1.5 million today). This was for the loss of 564 people enslaved on Bernal's estates who were classed by the British government as his 'property'. They included people like Antora, and her son Edward, who in August 1834 was around five years old (The National Archives, T 71/49). Receiving the money appears to have led to an escalation of Bernal's collecting.

When Bernal died in 1855, he was celebrated for 'the perfection of his taste, as well as the extent of his knowledge' (Christie and Manson, 1855). His collection was dispersed in a major auction during which the Museum of Ornamental Art at Marlborough House, which later became the South Kensington Museum (now the V&A), was the biggest single buyer.

Probably given as a love gift to be used to hold jewellery and other small, precious items (much smaller boxes have been described as intended specifically for rings.) An object with a vulnerable painted surface, as here, would itself probably have been protected by a specially made leather carrying case.

The fleur-de-lis often suggests a French origin, having long been part of the French royal insignia. Note however that Edward III (1327-77) assumed the quartered arms of France and England in 1340 (his claim through his mother Isabella, wife of Edward II). The fleur-de-lis need not indicate a French origin, and other northern European countries may be considered as possible places of manufacture (personal communication, 2007, from Elisabeth Antoine (Louvre, France).

The crowned letter (identification uncertain) inside the lid: presumably relates to the original owner or owner's family (of royal or noble status). The motif showing two arms with clasped hands might refer to a family emblem rather than a specific betrothal.

Lions: On this casket the lions in seated poses or prowling with backward and upwards glances are particularly prominent and appealing. Broadly speaking, the lion in medieval art could symbolise good or evil, Christ or the Devil, foe or ally, depending on its associations in the various stories. While Christians compared the devil to a roaring lion 'seeking whom he may devour' (1 Peter 5:8), the Medieval bestiary recounts how the father lion breathes life into cubs that are born dead, paralleling God the Father's resurrection of Jesus Christ. A heraldic meaning is possible for the lions on this casket, or more likely symbolic protectors of the valuables within it, and perhaps symbolic guardians of the owner herself. Lions in medieval art may embody strength (leo fortis, the strong lion, the source of whose strenght lay in his heart) as well as being associated with images of kingship and nobility. Some medieval commentators claimed that royal blood was immune to lion attacks. In the stories of Reynard the Fox it is the lion who is king, and on seals the lion is often referred to as King of the Beasts. Guardian lions are an ancient idea, found for example in Jewish and Buddhist cultures. Since the lion was supposed, according to legends in the bestiary, to sleep with his eyes open, many seals show lions curled up asleep at the base of a tree. The classical writer Aelian observes 'that even when asleep the lion moves his tail, showing, as you might expect, that he is not altogether quiescent, and that, although sleep has enveloped and enfolded him, it has not subdued him as it does all other animals', (quoted by Jackson p.133). Lions were said to be tolerant, even tempered and compassionate and in some medieval stories, lions lash themselves with their tails to work up a rage because they would normally not harm others unless angry. As this casket may have been a love gift to a woman, it is also interesting that according to some medieval writers lions would not harm a virgin.


For lions in lore and legend, see Deirdre Jackson, Lion (London, 2010).

For the use on goldsmiths' work of opus punctile (point work) - see Neil Stratford, De opere punctili, Beobachtungen zur Technik der Punktpunzierung um 1400, in Das Goldene Roessl: Ein Meisterwerk Pariser Hofkunst um 1400, (Munich Bayerisch Nationalmuseum, 1995), pp.131-146

Probably northern France

This exquisite casket is adorned with lions and gilt metal fleurs-de-lys, and is characteristic of French Gothic decoration of the 14th century. The richness of the decoration and the themes chosen, suggest that it would originally have belonged to a prince or nobleman. Before it was given to the museum in 1855, this object belonged to Ralph Bernal MP, heir to a fortune in the West Indies, and one of the greatest collectors of Medieval and Renaissance objets d’art in his time. After his death in 1854, his collections were sold off at high prices, which very much indicated the Victorian passion for all things Gothic.

1621-1855