Cassone
1430-1460 (made), 1840-1850 (made)
Artist/Maker | |
Place of origin |
Cassone or marriage coffer: wood, carved and gilt on paw feet. The front and ends are painted with allegorical subjects in tempera on panel, depicting the Triumph of Love, Chastity and Death (front), Narcissus and Echo (side), Pyramus and Thisbe (side), a sleeping nude woman (inside the lid), stylised foliage (the back). On the inside, on the bottom is painted a naked sleeping woman.
The panels apparently restored and remounted in a new and heavily gilt chest.
The panels apparently restored and remounted in a new and heavily gilt chest.
Object details
Categories | |
Object type | |
Materials and techniques | Tempera on panel |
Brief description | Painted and gilded, Florence(?) 15th century, rebuilt c1850 |
Physical description | Cassone or marriage coffer: wood, carved and gilt on paw feet. The front and ends are painted with allegorical subjects in tempera on panel, depicting the Triumph of Love, Chastity and Death (front), Narcissus and Echo (side), Pyramus and Thisbe (side), a sleeping nude woman (inside the lid), stylised foliage (the back). On the inside, on the bottom is painted a naked sleeping woman. The panels apparently restored and remounted in a new and heavily gilt chest. |
Dimensions |
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Style | |
Gallery label | Label text c.1930 while displayed in Tapestry Court: South-West Block. West Side. [gallery 44 ‘East Central Court’ c.1909-1952]
MARRIAGE CHEST (cassone).
Wood painted in colours and gilt.
The front painted after Petrarch’sTrionfi with the Triumph of Love, the Triumph of Chastity, and the Triumph of Death, attributed to the ‘Cassone Master’, perhaps Marco del Buono. The ends illustrating the stories of Narcissus and Pyramus & Thisbe, attributed to the ‘Paris Master’.
Inside a figure of a woman perhaps Helen of Troy by the same hand.
FLORENTINE; about 1440.
Re-gilt and in part re-painted.
4639-1858.
(1930) |
Object history | Purchased in 1858 for £80 Historical significance: Thornton notes that it may have been what was referred to in one inventory as a 'forziere al'anticha grande storiato' |
Historical context | The term cassone stands in Italian for chest and relates to large and ornate pieces of furniture made in Italy from the 14th to the end of the 16th centuries. They were generally made on the occasion of a relatively important wedding and contained the bride's trousseau. Writing in the mid-sixteenth century, Vasari describes cassoni thus: '…citizens of those times used to have in their apartments great wooden chests in the form of a sarcophagus, with the covers shaped in various fashions…and besides the stories that were wrought on the front and on the ends, they used to have the arms, or rather, insignia, of their houses painted on the corners, and sometimes elsewhere. And the stories that were wrought on the front were for the most part fables taken from Ovid and from other poets, or rather stories related by the Greek and Latin historians, and likewise chases, jousts, tales of love, and other similar subjects…'. (Giorgio Vasari, translated Gaston du C. de Vere, Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects, vol. 1, London 1996, p.267) These lavishly decorated cassoni, often combined with pastiglia decoration, were generally commissioned in pairs. Florence, which specialised in the decoration of the front panel, was at that time the main centre of production, even though Siena and the Veneto also supplied cassoni. The painted decorations usually represented episodes from classical or biblical history or mythology appropriate for the newly wed. The most flourishing cassone workshop in Florence was run by Marco del Buono Giamberti and Apollonio di Giovanni but major artists such as Domenico Veneziano and Botticelli may have decorated cassoni on occasion. Painted cassoni went out of fashion towards the end of the 15th century when carved oaken chests came into vogue. Comparable objects National Gallery Edinburgh (full reference required) |
Bibliographic references |
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Collection | |
Accession number | 4639-1858 |
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Record created | March 12, 2007 |
Record URL |
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