Knife sheath, Italian, 1500-1600, wood, leather, Salting Bequest

Wood carcase covered in black leather with decoration tooled and gilt. Interior shaped for 11 knives and other utensils and lined with vellum (cap) and gesso (container) with decoration in black.

Bequeathed by George Salting

Notes by W.A.Thorpe c1959:
W.101-1910 AURIFICUM

KNIFE-CASE. Wood carcase covered in black leather with decoration tooled and gilt. Interior shaped for 11 knives and other utensils and lined with vellum (cap) and gesso (container) with decoration in black.

Flat-topped shut-over cap, consisting of one pair of layers of leather, without carcuse, and lined on the inside with vellum or card printed with ornament in black. The outside decorated on the front with [below triple initials P.D.P.] a romayne head and with birds on stems, and on the rear with a floral diaper. At the sides a pair of eyes corresponding with two pairs of eyes on the container, for a strap long wanting and replaced by a triple fabric strap.

The embushment decorated with coloured plaster, in simulation of the lining of the cap, and perhaps in replacement of worn vellum lining.

Container, shaped to contents, decorated on the front with a 'romayne' head, and on the rear with a diamond diaper of pomegranates and rosettes. On the top an oval medallion containing the portrait bust of a bearded man below the initials P.D.P.

ITALIAN; 16th Century

Negative number 15023 (container) (W101-1910)
Negative number 15040 (cap) (W.101-1910)

General Remarks

On the base a tab inscribed in ink Spitzer. Apparently formerly in The Spitzer Collection, but not identifiable in the Catalogue, Vol. II text and Vol II plates, 1891.

W.101B-1910