- Object name(s):
- Casket
- Brief description:
- Design Front - battle scene, possibly Hercules (left of centre, with club) fighting with a male figure, while a woman is carried off by a man on horseback (right). Possibly missing two oval inset plaques either side of the strapwork cartouche (as similar ones on back are engraved in the solid). The escutcheon has been added. Back - Orpheus with a viol da gamba, playing to the animals, within a cartouche surrounded by drops, birds and satyrs Right side - battle scene with two opposing figures on horseback - a scantily-clad man (left) with a naked woman behind fighting a man in Roman armour (right), both wielding branches, with four other figures, two fallen, two standing. With later added handle, and twin holes for a delicate handle (missing) Left side - Hercules fighting the Lernanean hydra, assisted by Iolaus. Lid - a coat of arms described by Hayward (see below) as that of the Archduke Ferdinand of Tirol; but possibly that of Steiermark Bottom: Below a crown, is the Burgundian device of two crossed ragged staves, with four flints and steels producing sparks. This is set within a white border with corner scrolls, with a lion mask at each corner Materials The base (consisting of 2 butted boards) and interior divider of walnut The front, sides, back and lid - pear or tropical hardwood. The lid appears to consist of 3 or 4(?) narrow strips of the following widths: 58mm, 4.4cm (to split), 8.4cm The box is of dovetailed construction, with the base (7mm thick) glued up to the front/back and sides, supplemented by 2 wood dowels into the front. Later alterations and repairs On the lid, the front moulding on the lid no longer overbites the front when closed - as front and back have warped, probably caused by moving the internal brace and possibly exascerbated by some shrinkage across the lid. In order to offset this problem (of the lid not closing) the lid has been rebuilt, with added fillets of pale wood on all four edges, making it higher, added inside the edge mouldings, to accommodate the warp in front and back. These lid bone edge mouldings have been refixed to the built-up lid with pins of dark wood (where bone pins are used on base). On the left side, front corner at base, there is a replaced section of moulding. On the front left corner a section of moulding has been replaced. The bottom board has split, either because of divider being moved or because the sides prevented the bottom from shrinking across the grain. On the right side, front corner, the vertical strapwork element appears to be replacement as it looks to be of ivory not bone. On the inside, the four corner angles at top of front, back and sides are replaced. The softwood T shape divider and two oak small dividers at left side appear to be replacements. Note that plain walnut divider may be original but moved so that it caused front and back to distort. The two corner blocks are additions. Metalwork The 'top' handle, with replaced wood behind The lock and horizontal plate over wood fillet (replacing an earlier one?) The escutcheon The hinges - replacing others that were tenoned into a shallow mortise in the back, the knuckle sitting in a hollow cut in the top of the back board, and nailed to inside face of lid (the original hinge fixing holes on inside of lid have been filled with wax). The fixing for the new hinge has caused loss of small section of inlay, and caused small areas to be cut out of bone moulding along back of lid.
- Collection:
- Victoria and Albert Museum
- Associated concept:
- Containers
- Associated concept:
- Woodwork
- Associated concept:
- Medieval and renaissance
- Associated concept:
- Enslavement
- Associated person:
- Bernal, Ralph
- Current reproduction location:
- https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2012FH1389/full/!100,100/0/default.jpg
- Location type:
- Thumbnail
- Dimension:
- Height
- Dimension measured part:
- closed
- Dimension measurement unit:
- cm
- Dimension value:
- 10.2
- Dimension:
- Width
- Dimension measured part:
- Including metal "key" at side
- Dimension measurement unit:
- cm
- Dimension value:
- 32.5
- Dimension:
- Depth
- Dimension measurement unit:
- cm
- Dimension value:
- 19.5
- Material:
- walnut
- Material:
- bone
- Object history note:
- Bought from the Bernal Collection for £15, 'Casket of wood and ivory, bearing the arms of the Archduke Ferdinand of Austria, Count of Tyrol (created Knight of the Golden Fleece in 1588, d. 1595). On the bottom is the Burgundian device of the ragged staves, flint and steel and inside the lid are the initials WE and the date 1566' [Oliver Bracket, 22.4.1907] Provenance Ralph Bernal (1783-1854) was a renowned collector and objects from his collection are now in museums across the world, including the V&A. He was born into a Sephardic Jewish family of Spanish descent, but was baptised into the Christian religion at the age of 22. Bernal studied at Christ's College, Cambridge, and subsequently became a prominent Whig politician. He built a reputation for himself as a man of taste and culture through the collection he amassed and later in life he became the president of the British Archaeological Society. Yet the main source of income which enabled him to do this was the profits from enslaved labour. In 1811, Bernal inherited three sugar plantations in Jamaica, where over 500 people were eventually enslaved. Almost immediately, he began collecting works of art and antiquities. After the emancipation of those enslaved in the British Caribbean in the 1830s, made possible in part by acts of their own resistance, Bernal was awarded compensation of more than £11,450 (equivalent to over £1.5 million today). This was for the loss of 564 people enslaved on Bernal's estates who were classed by the British government as his 'property'. They included people like Antora, and her son Edward, who in August 1834 was around five years old (The National Archives, T 71/49). Receiving the money appears to have led to an escalation of Bernal's collecting. When Bernal died in 1855, he was celebrated for 'the perfection of his taste, as well as the extent of his knowledge' (Christie and Manson, 1855). His collection was dispersed in a major auction during which the Museum of Ornamental Art at Marlborough House, which later became the South Kensington Museum (now the V&A), was the biggest single buyer.
- Object name:
- Casket
- Object number:
- 2158-1855
- Object production date:
- 1566
- Date - association:
- made
- Date - earliest / single:
- 1566-01-01
- Date - latest:
- 1566-12-31
- Object production note:
- Inscribed WE presumably by the maker
- Object production person:
- unknown
- Person's biographical note:
- Probably Wiguleus Elsesser the Elder or Wiguleus Elsesser the Younger, both of whom are recorded as working in Innsbruck in 1567. The box is signed WE.
- Object production place:
- Innsbruck
- Place association:
- made
- Physical description:
- Design Front - battle scene, possibly Hercules (left of centre, with club) fighting with a male figure, while a woman is carried off by a man on horseback (right). Possibly missing two oval inset plaques either side of the strapwork cartouche (as similar ones on back are engraved in the solid). The escutcheon has been added. Back - Orpheus with a viol da gamba, playing to the animals, within a cartouche surrounded by drops, birds and satyrs Right side - battle scene with two opposing figures on horseback - a scantily-clad man (left) with a naked woman behind fighting a man in Roman armour (right), both wielding branches, with four other figures, two fallen, two standing. With later added handle, and twin holes for a delicate handle (missing) Left side - Hercules fighting the Lernanean hydra, assisted by Iolaus. Lid - a coat of arms described by Hayward (see below) as that of the Archduke Ferdinand of Tirol; but possibly that of Steiermark Bottom: Below a crown, is the Burgundian device of two crossed ragged staves, with four flints and steels producing sparks. This is set within a white border with corner scrolls, with a lion mask at each corner Materials The base (consisting of 2 butted boards) and interior divider of walnut The front, sides, back and lid - pear or tropical hardwood. The lid appears to consist of 3 or 4(?) narrow strips of the following widths: 58mm, 4.4cm (to split), 8.4cm The box is of dovetailed construction, with the base (7mm thick) glued up to the front/back and sides, supplemented by 2 wood dowels into the front. Later alterations and repairs On the lid, the front moulding on the lid no longer overbites the front when closed - as front and back have warped, probably caused by moving the internal brace and possibly exascerbated by some shrinkage across the lid. In order to offset this problem (of the lid not closing) the lid has been rebuilt, with added fillets of pale wood on all four edges, making it higher, added inside the edge mouldings, to accommodate the warp in front and back. These lid bone edge mouldings have been refixed to the built-up lid with pins of dark wood (where bone pins are used on base). On the left side, front corner at base, there is a replaced section of moulding. On the front left corner a section of moulding has been replaced. The bottom board has split, either because of divider being moved or because the sides prevented the bottom from shrinking across the grain. On the right side, front corner, the vertical strapwork element appears to be replacement as it looks to be of ivory not bone. On the inside, the four corner angles at top of front, back and sides are replaced. The softwood T shape divider and two oak small dividers at left side appear to be replacements. Note that plain walnut divider may be original but moved so that it caused front and back to distort. The two corner blocks are additions. Metalwork The 'top' handle, with replaced wood behind The lock and horizontal plate over wood fillet (replacing an earlier one?) The escutcheon The hinges - replacing others that were tenoned into a shallow mortise in the back, the knuckle sitting in a hollow cut in the top of the back board, and nailed to inside face of lid (the original hinge fixing holes on inside of lid have been filled with wax). The fixing for the new hinge has caused loss of small section of inlay, and caused small areas to be cut out of bone moulding along back of lid.
- Reproduction number:
- 2012FH1389
- Reproduction number:
- 2012FH1388
- Reproduction number:
- 2012FH1397
- Reproduction number:
- 2012FH1445
- Reproduction number:
- 2012FH1446
- Reproduction number:
- 2012FH1447
- Reproduction number:
- 2012FH1450
- Reproduction number:
- 2017KB7599
- Responsible department/section:
- FWK
- Technique:
- inlay
- Technique:
- Walnut and a fruitwood(?), with inlay of engraved bone
- Text reason:
- Collections online record
- Text:
- BOX GERMAN; dated 1566 Wood inlaid with ivory
- Text date:
- pre October 2000
- Text reason:
- Gallery label text
- User's reference:
- Reference:
- Christie and Manson, Catalogue of the Celebrated Collection of Works of Art, from the Byzantine Period to that of Louis Seize, of that Distinguished Collector, Ralph Bernal (London, 1855)
- Reference:
- The National Archives of the UK (TNA): Slave Registers: Jamaica: St. Ann. (1) Indexed, 1832, T 71/49
- Reference:
- Hannah Young, ''The perfection of his taste': Ralph Bernal, collecting and slave-ownership in 19th-century Britain', Cultural and Social History, 19:1 (2022), pp. 19-37
- User's reference:
- Reference:
- John Hayward: "A Reading Desk by Caspar Lickinger", Festgrabe Paul Auer, das obere Schwaben von Illertal zum Mindeltal, 7, 1963, pp. 177 - 181, pl. 8 A casket in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, (plate VIII, fig. 1) bearing the arms of the Archduke surmounted by the archducal bonnet is signed W.E. and dated 1566. This was presumably the work of Wiguleus Elsesser the Elder or Wiguleus Elsesser the Younger; both are recorded as working as gun-stockers in Innsbruck in 1567. [n.6 From the unpublished list of Innsbruck gunmakers and gunstockers prepared by Graf Oswald Trapp, formerly Landeskonservator in Tirol.]
- User's reference:
- Reference:
- Marjorie Trusted, Baroque and Later Ivories (V&A publishing, London, 2013), no. 2, pp. 4-6
- User's reference:
- Reference:
- Ancient and Modern Furniture & Woodwork in the South Kensington Museum, described with an introduction by John Hungerford Pollen, (London, 1874), p. 25. Box. Walnut wood, inlaid with ivory marquetry. German (?). Dated 1566. H. 4. in., L.12 in., W. 7 ¼ in. Bought (Bernal Collection), 15l. Decorated on the top and sides with well-arranged bands of strap-work and figures, disposed about the corners and intersections, of cupids, all etched with the needle. The figure design is a poor imitation of Italian drawing, and the work would seem more properly Spanish or Flemish. The centre of the lid is occupied by a large armorial shield, containing amongst its quarterings Leon, Castile, Bavaria? Over all a ducal crown and the order of the Golden Fleece. The way in which three simple and two compound shields are quartered is worth notice.
Persistent shareable link for this record: https://museumdata.uk/objects/545a934c-7001-3edd-b5a3-3b69175d030c
Use licence for this record: CC BY-NC
Attribution for this record: https://museumdata.uk/objects/545a934c-7001-3edd-b5a3-3b69175d030c, Victoria and Albert Museum, CC BY-NC
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