Casket
c. 1595
- Medium
- Rock crystal, ebony, rosewood, walnut, silver gilt, paint, varnish, and glass
- Classification
- Decorative Arts
- Dimensions
- 30 × 41 × 31.1 cm (11 3/4 × 16 1/8 × 12 1/4 in.)
- Culture
- Venice
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Applied Arts of Europe
- Credit line
- Kate S. Buckingham Endowment Fund; Paul H. Leffmann and Chester D. Tripp Major Acquisition funds; Mary Waller Langhorne and Harry and Maribel G. Blum endowment funds; Irish Gala and Harry A. Root and Curtis Chapin Palmer European…
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
This casket, or chest, was conceived as a piece of heavenly architecture. Its contents can be glimpsed through 184 panels of hand-cut rock crystal (quartz). Two panels on the lid are engraved with the Latin phrase BONAE MATRI—VTERE FELIX [To the good Mother—Use it with luck]. According to tradition, Pope Clement VIII employed this and other similar pieces to present blessed linens to the mothers of first-born male children of European royal families.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
