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- Date: mid 16th century (plaques one-eight, ten-thirteen)
19th century (plaque nine) - Medium: Metal, enamel, flesh tones, red details, gold, silk velvet, paper, enamelled and gilded, with enlevage
- Height: 17.7 cm, including feet; handle lying down
- Width: 21.6 cm
- Depth: 15.2 cm
- Inv: C578
- Location: Sixteenth Century Gallery
- Date: mid 16th century (plaques one-eight, ten-thirteen)
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- Description
- Provenance
- Marks/Inscriptions
- Further Reading
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- This casket is one of more than twenty examples incorporating plaques depicting semi-clothed and naked boys engaged in a range of activities such as music making and dancing. Iconography on this theme is known collectively as ‘jeux d’enfants’ (children’s games). These plaques, and the wreathed profile heads depicted on others on the casket, are in the style known as ‘all’antica’, taking their inspiration from the relief sculpture of Classical antiquity as moderated through Renaissance prints. Some individual figures on the plaques of C578 are clearly inspired by figures in specific prints. The scenes of children are accompanied here by gilt inscriptions concerning fortune and the boldness and courage of youth.
The fine mounts on this casket, which probably date to the sixteenth century, are unique to it, whereas many similar caskets have standardised mounts. Lockable caskets of this type may have been used as jewellery boxes. Some incorporate scenes with inscriptions referring to gift giving, perhaps indicating that the caskets themselves were given as gifts. The iconography and inscriptions on a casket in the Frick Collection suggest that it may have been given as a marriage gift. In this context, the single male and female heads that sometimes occur, as here, on the opposed trapezoidal casket plaques, would take on special significance. As a wedding gift or a gift on the birth of a son, the boys depicted on the casket might convey the giver’s hope that the couple would have sons who would embody prized qualities and have good fortune.
The original inscriptions on the plaques are in poor condition and have some nineteenth-century embellishments. One of the plaques dates to the nineteenth century.
- This casket is one of more than twenty examples incorporating plaques depicting semi-clothed and naked boys engaged in a range of activities such as music making and dancing. Iconography on this theme is known collectively as ‘jeux d’enfants’ (children’s games). These plaques, and the wreathed profile heads depicted on others on the casket, are in the style known as ‘all’antica’, taking their inspiration from the relief sculpture of Classical antiquity as moderated through Renaissance prints. Some individual figures on the plaques of C578 are clearly inspired by figures in specific prints. The scenes of children are accompanied here by gilt inscriptions concerning fortune and the boldness and courage of youth.