- Title
- Casket
- Date Made
- circa 1400
- Medium
- Carved bone, stained horn, wood, pigment, gilt metal
- Dimensions
- 11 1/8 × 13 × 7 1/2 in. (28.26 × 33.02 × 19.05 cm)
- Accession Number
- 47.8.25
- Collecting Area
- Decorative Arts and Design
- Curatorial Notes
The Embriachi workshop specialized in carved ivory and bone plaques that were assembled to create small caskets like this one, as well as other luxury items such as combs and mirrors. Baldassare degli Embriachi trained as a sculptor in Florence but soon moved to Venice, where successive generations carried on the family tradition of producing small coffers.
The individual plaques on the front, sides, and top of this piece retain the curve of the animal bones from which they were carved. They are framed by multicolored bands of delicately inlaid wood known as certosina work, named after the monumental altar that Embriachi created for the Certosa, or monastery complex, in Pavia. The religious narrative on this casket includes scenes from the Passion of Christ (the Annunciation, Adoration of the Magi, Christ Carrying the Cross, and Crucifixion). Each vignette is further embellished by spiral columns and arches with trefoil and quatrefoil piercings, much as one would find in full-scale architecture. Traces of pigment indicate that these scenes were originally more colorful.
- Selected Bibliography
- Feinblatt, Ebria. The Gothic Room. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum, 1947.
