Art Institute of Chicago

Casket with the Three Theological Virtues

ItalianLinkedCulture matchlcp-fe73adccbb59

Date: c. 1525-c. 1550
Medium: Gold, enamel, rock crystal, and lapis lazuli
Culture: Northern Italy
Department: Applied Arts of Europe
Institution: Art Institute of Chicago
Object ID: 119971

From the Art Institute of Chicago record

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.

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Provenance & credit

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Credit line: Gift of Marilynn B. Alsdorf
Provenance: 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.