FLORENCE, LATE 17TH / EARLY 18TH CENTURY, SOME MOUNTS LATER

This Florentine casket, richly embellished with polished hardstones in imitation of fruit, and gilt-bronze mounts, is closely related to one formerly in the collection of the 6th Earl of Rosebery, sold in the 1977 Mentmore sale, lot 1054, which features a similar configuration of hardstone-mounted tortoiseshell, and ebony and ebonised veneer, with virtually identical gilt bronze feet in the form of mermaids (S. Swynfen Jervis, ‘Pietre Dure’ Caskets in England’, Furniture History, vol. 43, 2007, fig. 16, no. 24). The art collection at Mentmore was among the most outstanding of its kind. Built between 1852 and 1854 by Baron Mayer Amschel de Rothschild, the mansion was sumptuously furnished with extraordinary works of art in every field. On his death in 1874, Baron Mayer left Mentmore and a fortune of some £2,000,000 to his daughter, Hannah de Rothschild. Four years later Hannah married Archibald Philip, 5th Earl of Rosebery, who added considerably to the collections assembled by his father-in-law, and it remained intact until the dispersal of the contents in 1977. Another casket, in the Royal Palace, Madrid, also features tortoiseshell and hardstones (A. Gonzalez-Palâcios, Las Colecciones Reales Espanolas de Mosaicos y Piedras Duras, Madrid, 2001, p. 207). Other examples but without tortoiseshell veneer include a casket offered for sale in 2006, illustrated in G. Sarti, Fastueux Objets en Marbre et Pierres Dures, Paris, 2006, pp. 134-5, and another pair at The Vyne, Hampshire (National Trust NT 718777.1, 2).
Durrow Abbey, County Offaly in Ireland, was built on the site of a highly important Christian monastery founded by St. Columba in the 6th century. The mansion has had a chequered history having been destroyed by fire twice, and the present building dates from circa 1926. Home to the Toler family, Earls of Norbury, from 1815 to the late 1940s, the house and its contents were sold in 1950, and it is possible the casket remained in the house thereafter during the residency of the present vendor.