Gothic Ivories Project | Casket with pitched lid (coffret); known as 'Arqueta de los Reyes' (Kings' Casket) (Lid)

Casket with pitched lid (coffret); known as 'Arqueta de los Reyes' (Kings' Casket) (Lid)

Casket with pitched lid (coffret); known as 'Arqueta de los Reyes' (Kings' Casket) (Lid)

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Front

End, left

Front

End, right

Back

Interior

Front

Bottom

Links

Subject
Secular.

Repository Institution
www.flg.es

To purchase an image
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Madrid, Museo Lázaro Galdiano

Inv. 2924

Ivory;wood;metal (mounts)

Height: 190mm
Width: 330mm
Depth: 172mm

Lid, front
Byzantine emperor (?); bearded emperor with tiara.
Body, front
Knight with sword and banner (possibly saint George); king (?) holding a sceptre.
End, right
Coat of arms with fleur-de-lys; coat of arms of Sicily. King of France holding a sceptre with fleur-de-lys and an orb; unidentified king holding a scroll; crown.
Lid, back
Man holding a sword; soldier in armour holding a spear; soldier in armour holding a sword.
Body back
Holy Roman emperor holding an orb and cross; imperial two-headed eagle; emperor holding a scroll.
End, left
Two men; sceptre.
Foliated scrolls.
Inside: Arabic style intarsia work.

Camps Cazorla 1949-1950: 13th-14th century.
Camón Aznar 1951: early 16th-century drawings.
Domínguez Perela 1986: 14th century.
Galán y Galindo 2005: 13th-century (?) Siculo-Arabic casket with interior decoration and some of the metal fittings possibly from the 14th century; early 15th-century drawings.
Museum's opinion 2013: 13th-century (?) Siculo-Arabic casket with late 19th- or early 20th-century drawings in a 16th-century Germanic style.

Attribution
Unknown

Polychromy - Gilding
Later drawings of kings and heroes on all sides (for full details, see main description).

Reverse
Flat and smooth.

Object Condition
The upper part of the lid is cracked. The lower strip of the left end seems to be a later replacement.

Comments
Galán y Galindo offers to identify the kings with kings of Sicily (see Galán y Galindo 2005 for full details and identification).

Provenance
In the Museo Lázaro Galdiano by 1949.

Bibliography
E. Camps Cazorla, Inventario del Museo Lázaro Galdiano (1949-1950, unpublished).
J. Camón Aznar, Guía abreviada del Museo Lázaro Galdiano (Madrid, 1951), p. 75.
E. Domínguez Perela, Eboraria islámica. Las arquetas del Museo Lázaro Galdiano, in Revista Goya 193-195 (1986), p. 81.
A. Galán y Galindo, Marfiles medievales del Islam (Cordoba, 2005), II, pp. 320-329, no. 18002.

Image

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