Lot Essay
The design of this impressive casket with its elaborately carved fruit and flowers in semi-precious stones within gilt-bronze and silver borders relates closely to the work of the scultore Giovan Battista Foggini (1652-1725), director of the Galleria dei Lavori, or Grand Ducal workshops, in Florence under the reign of Grand Duke Cosimo III (1670-1723).
A very similar casket after a design by Foggini at The Vyne, Hampshire is illustrated in A.M. Giusti, Pietre Dure, 1992, p. 69, pl. 44. Other caskets of this design are illustrated op. cit., fig. 28-29, p. 110 and in A. González-Palacios, Il Tempio del Gusto, 1986, vol. II, p.60, fig. 714 and p.61, fig. 77. The carved fruit motif of the offered lot was so popular that Foggini created a new position in the workshop called fruttista. Foggini designed a fruit-encrusted and gilt ribbon-tied prie dieu in 1706 for the Electress Palatine now at the Pitti Palace (see A.M. Giusti, op. cit., p. 70, pl. 45.
The Grand Ducal workshop was created by Ferdinando I de Medici in 1588, continuing the tradition started by Cosimo I de Medici for the creation of great works of art in valuable and rare stones. Caskets such as the offered lot were popular gifts from Florentine aristocrats to foreign dignitaries and princes.
A very similar casket after a design by Foggini at The Vyne, Hampshire is illustrated in A.M. Giusti, Pietre Dure, 1992, p. 69, pl. 44. Other caskets of this design are illustrated op. cit., fig. 28-29, p. 110 and in A. González-Palacios, Il Tempio del Gusto, 1986, vol. II, p.60, fig. 714 and p.61, fig. 77. The carved fruit motif of the offered lot was so popular that Foggini created a new position in the workshop called fruttista. Foggini designed a fruit-encrusted and gilt ribbon-tied prie dieu in 1706 for the Electress Palatine now at the Pitti Palace (see A.M. Giusti, op. cit., p. 70, pl. 45.
The Grand Ducal workshop was created by Ferdinando I de Medici in 1588, continuing the tradition started by Cosimo I de Medici for the creation of great works of art in valuable and rare stones. Caskets such as the offered lot were popular gifts from Florentine aristocrats to foreign dignitaries and princes.