Casket
12th century
- Medium
- Ivory, brass, tempera, and gold leaf
- Classification
- Decorative Arts
- Dimensions
- 9.5 × 15.9 × 9.7 cm (3 3/4 × 6 1/4 × 3 13/16 in.)
- Culture
- Sicily
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Applied Arts of Europe
- Credit line
- Samuel P. Avery Endowment
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its museum says too little about what it shows to place it for younger viewers. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
This type of ornately painted ivory casket survived in relatively large numbers in church treasuries. Judging from their Arabic inscriptions, which contain wishes for happiness, blessings, or glory, it is likely that many of them were originally intended for secular use as wedding gifts or jewelry boxes. However, they were often later used as reliquaries. Here traces of an inscription on the front rim and cover read, "May glory endure". This box was probably made on the island of Sicily, an important crossroads of Mediterranean trade.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
