About This Artwork

Italian

Rock Crystal Casket, first half of the 16th century

Plaques: rock crystal; mount: enamel and gold
4.2 x 8.4 x 4.9 cm (1 5/8 x 3 5/16 x 1 15/16 in.)
Gift of Marilynn B. Alsdorf, 1992.555

Exhibition, Publication and Ownership Histories

Exhibition History

London, Wartski Ltd., A Thousand Years of Enamel, May 18-June 5, 1971, cat. 19.

Chicago, The Martin D'Arcy Gallery of Art, The Art of Jewelry 1450-1650, Spring 1975, cat. 8.

Mantua, Palazzo Te and Palazzo Ducale, Gonzaga: La Celeste Galeria, Sept. 2-Dec. 8, 2002, cat. 87.

Publication History

Ferdinand Zenner, Die K. K. geistliche Schatzkammer (Vienna, 1856), p. 25, no. 69.

Franz Schestag, Katalog der Sammlung des Freiherrn Anselm von Rothschild in Wien., vol. 2 (Vienna, 1872) p. 32, appendix no. 608.

Frédéric Spitzer, La Collection Spitzer: Antiquité, moyen âge, renaissance (Paris, 1892), p. 19, no. 26.

Paul Chevalier, Catalogue des objets d'art et de haute curiosité...composant l'importante et précieuse collection Spitzer (Paris, 1893), p. 159, no. 2615.

Heinrich Zimerman, "Inventare, Acten und Regesten aus der Schatzkammer des allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses," Jahrbuch der kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des allhöchsten Kaiserhauses, vol. 16 (1895), Regest. 12623, p. 9, no. 53; Regest. 12648, p. 53; Kasten 7, no. 6.

Sitte, Adolph. "Die Kaiserliche-geistliche Schatzkammer in Wien," Mitteilungen der K. K. Centralkommission für die Erforschung und Erhaltung der Kunst- und Historischen Denkmale, 27 (1901), p. 77.

J. Destrée, "The Reliquary of the Holy Thorn in the Waddesdon Bequest," The Connoisseur, 79 (1927), p. 138.

O. M. Dalton, The Waddesdon Collection

John F. Hayward, "Salomon Weininger, Master Faker," The Connoisseur, 187 (1974), pp. 170-79, here 172 and 175-79.

Ian Wardropper, "Italian Renaissance Decorative Arts in Chicago Collections," Apollo 125 (1987), pp. 200-205, here 204, fig. 6.

Ian Wardropper et al, Renaissance Jewelry in the Alsdorf Collection, The Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 25, 2 (2000), pp. 59-60 and 94, no. 24.

Ownership History

Queen Maria Theresa of Austria (d. 1780), Vienna, by 1758, when it is first listed in an inventory as a reliquary of Saint Felix; and bequeathed by her to the Geistliche Schatzkammer (Ecclesiastical Treasury) 1780 [see Zenner, 1856, p. 25, no. 69; Zimerman 1895, pg. 6; Sitte 1901, p. 77]; Salomon Weininger [see Hayward 1974, p. 175-179]; Baron Anselm von Rothschild, Vienna, by 1872 [see Schestag 1872, p. 32]. Frédéric Spitzer, Paris, by 1891, [sold, Paris, Mannheim and Chevallier, April 17-June 16, 1893, no. 2615]. Arturo Lopez-Willshaw, by 1970 [sold, London, Sotheby's, October 13, 1970, no. 2]; Wartski, Ltd., London; sold to Mr. and Mrs. James W. Alsdorf, Chicago, 1974 [according to incoming receipt in curatorial file]; given to the Art Institute, 1992.