Casket with the Three Theological Virtues

c. 1525-c. 1550

Italian

Miniature caskets might have been used in the Renaissance to house jewels or possibly saintly relics. This example features panels of engraved rock crystal, an extremely hard material of great clarity and polish that is carved only with patience and skill. The emblematic figures depicted here are modeled after the work of the sixteenth-century Italian painter Raphael.

Status: On View, Gallery 238
Department: Applied Arts of Europe

Title: Casket with the Three Theological Virtues
Place: Northern Italy (Object made in)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1500–1550
Medium: Gold, enamel, rock crystal, and lapis lazuli
Dimensions: 4.2 × 8.4 × 4.9 cm (1 5/8 × 3 5/16 × 1 15/16 in.)
Credit Line: Gift of Marilynn B. Alsdorf
Reference Number: 1992.555
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/119971/manifest.json

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.
Heinrich Zimerman, “Inventare, Acten und Regesten aus der Schatzkammer des allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses,” Jahrbuch der kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des allhöchsten Kaiserhauses, 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.
J. F. Hayward, “Salomon Weininger, Master Faker,” The Connoisseur, 187 (1974), pp. 172-3 and 175-79, figs. 3 a, b, and c.
Ian Wardropper, “Italian Renaissance Decorative Arts in Chicago Collections,” Apollo 125 (1987), pp. 204-205, fig. 6.
Martha McCrory, “Cameos and Intaglios” in Ian Wardropper et al, Renaissance Jewelry in the Alsdorf Collection, The Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 25, 2 (2000), pp. 59-60, 94, 105, no. 24.
Paulus Rainer, “‘Es ist immer dieselbe Melange’. Der Antiquitätenhändler Salomon Weininger und das Wiener Kunstfälscherwesen im Zeitalter des Historismus,” Jahrbuch des Kunsthistorischen Museums Wien 10 (2008), pp. 77-78, fig. 27.
Paola Cordera, “Art for the Rothschilds: The Career of the Dealer Frédéric Spitzer” in A Rothschild Renaissance: A New Look at the Waddesdon Bequest in the British Museum, ed. Pippa Shirley and Dora Thornton (London, 2017), pp. 173, 176 n. 33, fig. 253.

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.

Empress Maria Theresa of Austria (d. 1780), Vienna, by 1758, when it is first listed in an inventory as a reliquary of Saint Felix; bequeathed by her to the Geistliche Schatzkammer (Ecclesiastical Treasury) 1780 [see Zenner, 1856, p. 25, no. 69; Zimerman 1895, p. 6; Sitte 1901, p. 77]; Salomon Weininger, Vienna [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.

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

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