Casket

12th century

Italian; Sicily

This type of ornately painted ivory casket survived in relatively large numbers in church treasuries. Judging from their Arabic inscriptions, which contain wishes for happiness, blessings, or glory, it is likely that many of them were originally intended for secular use as wedding gifts or jewelry boxes. However, they were often later used as reliquaries. Here traces of an inscription on the front rim and cover read, “May glory endure”. This box was probably made on the island of Sicily, an important crossroads of Mediterranean trade.

Status: On View, Gallery 236
Department: Applied Arts of Europe

Title: Casket
Place: Sicily (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.: 1100–1199
Medium: Ivory, brass, tempera, and gold leaf
Dimensions: 9.5 × 15.9 × 9.7 cm (3 3/4 × 6 1/4 × 3 13/16 in.)
Credit Line: Samuel P. Avery Endowment
Reference Number: 1926.389
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/28454/manifest.json

Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago 20, 6 (1926) p. 88, ill.
Perry Blythe Cott, Siculo-Arabic Ivories (Princeton, 1939), p. 33, no. 18, pl. 7.
Georg Swarzenski, review of Perry Blythe Cott, Siculo-Arabic Ivories in Art Bulletin, 22 (1940), p. 105.
José Ferrandis Torres, Marfiles árabes de occidente (Madrid, 1940), vol. 2, pp. 169-170, no. 48, pl. 39.
R. H. Pinder-Wilson and C. N. L. Brooke, “The Reliquary of St. Petroc and the Ivories of Norman Sicily,” Archaeologia or Miscellaneoous Tracts relating to Antiquity 104 (1973), pp. 275 n. 1, 303, 305.
C[hristina] M. N[eilsen] in “Devotion and Splendor: Medieval art at the Art Institute of Chicago,” Museum Studies 30, 2 (2004), pp. 21-22, ill., 90, no. 2.
Christina Neilsen in “The Silk Road and Beyond: Trade, Travel, and Transformation,” Museum Studies 33, 1 (2007), pp. 72-73, ill., 94-95.
Anthony Cutler, “How and for whom they made the boxes” in Siculo-Arabic Ivories and Islamic Painting, 1100-1300. Proceedings of the International Conference, Berlin, 6-8 July, 2007, ed. David Knipp (Munich, 2011), pp. 21, 24, 27, fig. 11.
Maria Vittoria Fontana, “Hunting with Cheetahs on Painted Siculo-Arabic Ivories” in Siculo-Arabic Ivories and Islamic Painting, 1100-1300. Proceedings of the International Conference, Berlin, 6-8 July, 2007, ed. David Knipp (Munich, 2011), pp. 125, 134.

The Art Institute of Chicago, Medieval Decorative Arts from Chicago Collections, October 2, 1985-January 5, 1986, no. cat.
The Art Institute of Chicago, Devotion and Splendor: Medieval Art at the Art Institute of Chicago, September 25, 2004-January 3, 2005, cat. 2.
Evanston, Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern Universtiy, Caravans of Gold, Fragments in Time: Art, Culture, and Exchange across Medieval Saharan Africa, January 26–July 21, 2019, p. 174 (ill.), p. 190 (ill.), and p. 194; traveled to Washington, D.C., National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, April 8–November 29, 2020.

Achillito Chiesa, Milan, by 1926 (his sale, New York, American Art Association, April 16-17, 1926, no. 368); purchased by the Art Institute, 1926.

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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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