- Museum number
- WB.22
- Description
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Painted Limoges enamel casket made of twelve plaques; mounted in a gilt metal frame; story of Tobit from the Apocrypha; inscribed; on back of casket, two plaques on the sloping lid and two on the main body; painted in grisaille on a black ground with thin washes of green on the background details; legends and details in gilding; counter enamel uncertain - hidden.
- Production date
- 1540 - 1560 (circa)
- Dimensions
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Height: 10.50 centimetres (casket)
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Height: 13.60 centimetres (with handle up)
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Length: 17.50 centimetres (base)
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Length: 16.50 centimetres (casket)
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Weight: 971 grammes
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Width: 11.20 centimetres (base)
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Width: 10.10 centimetres (casket)
- $Inscriptions
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- Curator's comments
- Provenance: Baron Anselm von Rothschild, Vienna, by 1866 (cat no. 11), by inheritance to his son Baron Ferdinand Rothschild (d. 1898).
Commentary from Tait 1981: '[The casket has] skilfully painted miniatures in grisaille and explanatory inscriptions in French painted in gold, [and] is composed of twelve small plaques depicting the story of Tobit, but none is signed. This gifted enameller may have been a member of the Pénicaud workshop and can perhaps be identified with an anonymous enameller who occasionally signed his works, M.P. Whatever may be his correct identity, this enameller's subtle delicacy of the gradations of tone shows a complete mastery of the technique of grisaille enamelling and this casket probably dates from the 1540s.'
For a similar casket in Lisbon see: 'Guide to Dr. Anastacio Gonçalves Casa-Museo', p. 24, fig 1. A casket with an identical mount is in the Hermitage, (inv. no. Ф 279, previously Б -314).very similar mounts also on casket in Turin, Armeria Reale, which has same woman's bust on side panel and same handle and profile, and another with similar mounts in the Art Institute of Chicago (inv. no. 1937.821).
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. 22, pl. VII; O.M. Dalton, 'The Waddesdon Bequest', 2nd edn (rev), British Museum, London, 1927, no.22; H. Tait, 'The Waddesdon Bequest', BM London, 1981, p.46, fig. 46.
- Location
- On display (G2a/dc3)
- Exhibition history
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Exhibited:
1994 9 Oct-1995 27 Feb, Germany, Frankfurt, Jüdisches Museum, The Rothschilds: A European Family
- Condition
- Good; some wear
- Associated titles
Associated Title: Apocrypha
- 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.22
