casket
- Museum number
- WB.17
- Description
-
Iron or steel casket with rounded top; damascened in gold and silver with scenes of hunting and conviviality, Diana and Actaeon, Orpheus charming the beasts etc.; broad band passes over the middle, one end of it forms the hasp concealing the keyhole.
- Production date
- 1525-1575
- Dimensions
-
Height: 7.90 centimetres (including band)
-
Height: 7.60 centimetres (without feet)
-
Length: 8.50 centimetres
-
Weight: 440 grammes
-
Width: 6 centimetres (casket)
-
Width: 7.60 centimetres (including band)
- Curator's comments
- Provenance: Baron Anselm von Rothschild, Vienna, by 1866 (cat no. 399), by inheritance to his son Baron Ferdinand Rothschild (d. 1898).
Commentary: Blair 1970 attributes this casket to Diego and compares it to one in the Poldi Pezzoli Milan. (information kindly provided by Daniel Packer). There is a woodknife by Diego de Caias which belonged to Henry VIII of England in the Royal Collection at Windsor, inv. no. 61316 (see Blair 1970 figs. 30-31) which also compares well to this casket. For another similar example see Burlington Fine Arts Club Exhibition of Steel & Ironwork, London 1900, pl. XXIV.
Bibliography: Charles Hercules Read, 'The Waddesdon Bequest: Catalogue of the Works of Art bequeathed to the British Museum by Baron Ferdinand Rothschild, M.P., 1898', London, 1902, no. 17; O.M. Dalton, 'The Waddesdon Bequest', 2nd edn (rev), British Museum, London, 1927, no.17; Claude Blair, "A Royal Swordsmith and Damascener, Diego de Caias", Metropolitan Museum of Art Journal, vol.3, 1970, fig.73, p. 196.
- Location
- On display (G2a/dc3)
- Acquisition date
- 1898
- Acquisition notes
- This collection is known as the Waddesdon Bequest under the terms of Baron Ferdinand Rothschild’s will.
- Department
- Britain, Europe and Prehistory
- Registration number
- WB.17