LATE 16TH CENTURY

Small caskets in a variety of materials were a popular feature of European domestic life in the 16th Century and were often given as tokens of affection or as wedding gifts. This small table cabinet, with its velvet-covered body richly adorned with gilt-copper mounts, is typical of Kabinettkaestchen of Southern Germany dating to the last quarter of the 16th Century. Augsburg and Nuremberg were two important centres of production for these small portable cabinets, which are discussed at length by G. Summlung in Kostbar und geheimnisvoll - Miniaturmöbel und Schatzkästchen, Bielefeld, 2003, pp. 35-37. One example illustrated on page 35 is similarly engraved on the fall-front, but with a mythological scene from the life of the hero Jason.
A table cabinet in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, although covered in etched steel, is extremely similar in form and construction to this example and is similarly mounted to the inside of the fall-front with a decorated gilt-metal plaque. Reinier Baarsen writes how this particular form was inspired by the escritorio of 15th-century Spain, keeping the fall-front but without the intention of using it as a writing surface. Their small scale and the decoration to the inner surface of the fall-fronts, suggest that this table cabinet and the Rijksmuseum's example were likely intended for the storage of jewellery or other precious objects (R. Baarsen, 17th-Century Cabinets, Rijksmuseum Dossiers, Zwolle, 2000, pp. 2-4). While primes for the engraved scenes to the insides panels have not been discovered, it is interesting to note that they both appear to depict baptisms, possibly indicating that this rich casket was conceived as a gift to mark just such an occasion.