Casket, Italian, ca. 1570, leather

Boiled leather rectangular casket with blue and gold tooled decoration

Purchased with funds from the Captain H.B.Murray bequest

(RP/1938/962): Notes by unidentified curator (RJ) and Ralph Edwards
'of Italian origin.. remarkable in that it retains its orginal colouring'
'Italian or South German (?), is particularly attractive on account of the original colour which differentiates it from any examples in our collection.

It was decided to 'find a place for it in the Murray collection', ie that £25 from the Captain H.B.Murray bequest was used to purchase it.


Notes by W.A.Thorpe c1959:
W.7-1938

CASE or CASKET. Layers of boiled leather, one pair of layers for the lid, two pairs of layers for the lid, two pairs for the container, with decoration tooled, painted in deep-blue and in crimson, and gilt.

Rectangular upright form. Two iron hinges and lock-plate. Hinged shut-over lid and embushment. On the front and rear of the top of the lid, and round the four sides of the lid, a border rayonne of deep blue and gold (perhaps a feature, used decoratively, from a coat of arms). On a flaming ground and above a border rayonne, the bust of a man facing right, mostly in gilding. On the rear, within a circular medallion against a crimson ground, the bust of a woman facing left, also in relief, mainly gilt. On the ends, beneath Gothic arches against a red ground, the head of a woman, facing left, in helm [?], on the left-hand end against a flammiferous ground in gold on red, and on the right-hand end against a foliated ground.

On the underside a panel of incised diaper. Interior lined throughout with crimson brocade dating from the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries.

Shield-shaped lock -plate and two hinges of iron. The edge of the ends of the lid and a pair of ridges (one in rope form) round the container below the locken plate (in simulation of the join of cap and container of a box) pierced with two pairs of holes of later date than the casket for a thong (supplementing the closure by lock) long wanting and replaced by a crimson and white cord now within.

ITALIAN; about 1500

Museum Negatives

78063 (front)
78064 (front and part of side)
78065 (rear)
78066 (side, foliage ground)

W.7-1938