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Cassone

1400-1420 (made)

Chest on raised, front and back feet, the sides cut with a cusped arch forming feet. The front panel is carved in shallow relief and incised depicting (centrally) a fountain of love, and groups representing the Adoration of the Magi (left) underneath a baldachin and the decapitation of a female figure (possibly St Catherine of Alexandria) in front of an enthroned king (right. Above these scenes are scrolling foliage and lions. Below the main front panel, separated by an open strip with split turned reels, is the full-width front foot, carved with a freize of hunters on horseback and on foot chasing animals. The figurative panels have inner borders with geometric punched patterns and outer borders with scribed grid lines.

Inside the lid is an incised representation of Christ on the cross, set in the tomb, which is flanked by two grieving women, and distant stylised trees.

Construction
Six-board, pegged construction which is visible where damage has occurred at one corner.


Object details

Categories
Furniture
Containers
Renaissance (Italian)
Medieval and Renaissance
Object type
Cassone
Materials and techniques
Cypress(?), carved and engraved
Brief description
Venetian 1400-20, cypress
Physical description
Chest on raised, front and back feet, the sides cut with a cusped arch forming feet. The front panel is carved in shallow relief and incised depicting (centrally) a fountain of love, and groups representing the Adoration of the Magi (left) underneath a baldachin and the decapitation of a female figure (possibly St Catherine of Alexandria) in front of an enthroned king (right. Above these scenes are scrolling foliage and lions. Below the main front panel, separated by an open strip with split turned reels, is the full-width front foot, carved with a freize of hunters on horseback and on foot chasing animals. The figurative panels have inner borders with geometric punched patterns and outer borders with scribed grid lines.

Inside the lid is an incised representation of Christ on the cross, set in the tomb, which is flanked by two grieving women, and distant stylised trees.

Construction
Six-board, pegged construction which is visible where damage has occurred at one corner.
Dimensions
  • Closed height: 58cm
  • Width: 108cm
  • Depth: 46.5cm
  • Lid open height: 101cm
Dims from file (HWD): 1 ft. 11 in., 3 ft. 6 in., 1 ft. 6 in.
Gallery label
CHEST Venetian; about 1420 Cypress Wood 49-1882 On the front, from left to right are the Adoration of the Magi, the Fountain of Life (symbolic of the Virgin) and the beheading of a female saint, possibly St Catherine of Alexandria, who was mystically married to the Christ Child. On the base is a hunting scene. Flat, incised decoration with a cut away, punched background is a feature of Northern Italian and Alpine woodwork from about 1300, and is traditionally associated with the Adige. This elaborate Chest is more likely to have been made in Venice, a major centre of furniture making.(Pre-2006)
Object history
Bought for £12 'from Venice' (no further information on file)
Historical context
Comparable chests
Chest 53' 3/4" x 20 x 19 3/4", Indianapolis Museum of Arts, C10093
Bibliographic references
  • Paul Schubring, Cassoni; truhen und truhenbilder der italienischen frührenaissance. ein beitrag zur profanmalerei im quattrocento (Leipzig: K.W. Hiersemann, 1915); cat. no. 745-6, plate CLIX
  • Maya Corry; Deborah Howard; Mary Laven, Madonnas and Miracles: The Holy Home in Renaissance Italy (Philip Wilson Publishers and the Fitzwilliam Museum 2017), fig. 5, p.18, p. 181 Boxes decorated with religious imagery often held jewellery with spiritual significance. The fifteenth-century preacher Bernardino of Siena suggested that a woman should remember that her 'beauty and fine grace are given to her by God, if only she uses them well ... [she should] be adorned and delicate, but with discretion in all things, and modestly'. [note 8] Bernardino also encouraged women to lessen the time they spent at their toilette saying 'if they spent as much of it on their soul as they do on beautifying their bodies, they would turn into Saint Catharine'. [note 9] Larger chests, called cassoni, were also associated with marriage; they were used to carry the bride's possessions and trousseau (corredo) to her new house, where they would become treasured furnishings. While the colourful painted fifteenth-century Florentine cassoni are well known, another type of chest produced in the Veneto region, decorated in the same technique as the small box with the Annunciation scene, was also popular. A typical cassone (fig. 5), probably used to store linens and personal possessions, illustrates another way in which instructive religions imagery was present within the household. Incised on the front panel between decorative bands of hunters chasing animals in typical courtly imagery, a variety of scenes unfolds. In the centre of the front panel a fountain is set in a field of scrolling floral and vegetal patterns, which evoke the Garden of Eden and the Virgin's emblematic role as the hortus conclusus (enclosed garden). [note 10] The fount of water represents the Fountain of Life. Based upon a description in the Song of Songs of a 'fountain of gardens, a well of living waters', it became a symbol of the Virgin and her chaste nature. [note 11] To the left of the fountain on the cassone, the Virgin and Christ Child are enthroned under a baldachin and St Joseph sits faithfully by their side. The three Magi kneel before the Virgin and Child in adoration and angels play music overhead. To the right, a female martyr, possibly St Catharine, kneels before a king as the executioner swings his sword at her head. This moment of saintly martyrdom is matched with an image of Christ's suffering etched on the underside of the lid. Christ is depicted emerging from his tomb as the Man of Sorrows accompanied by the mourning Virgin and St John the Baptist. As the woman opened this cassone during her daily chores, she would be reminded to pray and reflect on Christ's suffering by the symbolic imagery underneath the lid (see also fig. 39). [note 12]
Collection
Furniture and Woodwork Collection
Accession number
49-1882

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Record createdMarch 16, 2006
Record URL
https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O122062/cassone/
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