A FLORENTINE PIETRA DURA, GILT-BRASS-MOUNTED EBONISED AND OLIVEWOOD CASKET

Following very much in the vanguard of George, Prince of Wales and his circle, the Westminsters were avaricious connoisseurs with Francophile leanings. Echoing Beckford, the Duke of Hamilton, Edmund Fairfax-Lucy and George Watson Taylor, their collection reveals a particular taste for pietra dura, including the clock-cabinet by Robert Home in the Gilbert Collection (Anna Maria Massinelli, The Gilbert Collection: Hardstones, London, 2000, pp. 49-50).
This casket is inspired by the output of the Galleria dei Lavori, or Grand Ducal Workshops, in Florence under its director, the scultore Giovanni Battista Foggini (1652-1725), during the reign of Grand Duke Cosimo III (1670-1723). Related 17th Century caskets, which were often given as diplomatic gifts to foreign dignitaries, are illustrated in A. Gonzalez-Palacios, Il Tempio del Gusto: La Toscana e L'Italia Settentrionale, Milan, 1986, vol. II, pp. 60-1, figs. 72-7.