Casket, wood, leather and gilded brass, France, ca. 1400

Casket of wood, leather and gilded brass. Covered with painted cuir bouilli, along with cut and embossed leather with fashionably dressed men and women that would have been originally brightly painted. Features stamped brass mounts with the inscription EN BIEN AMER (success in love); the interior and some mounts replaced according to gallery label (2007).

Bequeathed by George Salting

Condition 'worn and cracked'

Notes by W.A.Thorpe c1959:
W.178-1910

CASKET. Soft-wood covered with boiled leather, now dark brown in colour, with tooled decoration partly in relief, surmounted by brass hinges and other brass mounts.

Box of rectangular plan (ichnography). Lid in the form of a frustum of a rectangular pyramid.

Three-band hinges, the upper members travelling forward, as shaped sides bearing rosettes, and terminating, on the front slopes, in fleur-de-lys (lateral), and in the lock-hasp (central), the portions between fleur-de-lys and rosettes long wanting; the lower members, travelling backwards and beneath, and terminating on the front in fleur-de-lys (lateral) and in the back (central), portions between hinge and fleur-de-lys long wanting, but scarred as by bands. Lateral scar; as by a band, terminating in fleur-de-lys on the ends.

Lid edged with brass banding chased on the front with the legend: EN BIEN AMER in Gothic letter. Loop handle of brass on the top.

On the top, in four panels under round-headed arcading, two pairs of confronting figures in the convention of courtly love (amour courteois). On the front, a pair of similar figures seated on the ground, and a similar pair on either end.

Interior lined later with brocade dating from the late 17th or 18th century (statement of 19th Dec 1956 Department of Textiles).

NORTHERN FRENCH; about 1400.

General Remarks:

Compare note on W97-1910. No negatives (1956)

W.178-1910