Ebonised casket with engraved bone & mother of pearl. North Italy17th century

An ebonised casket inset with engraved bone and mother of pearl panels.

North Italian, first half of the 17th century.

Measures 12.8 x 8.3 x 6.6cm.

The inlaid pearl and bone panels are engraved with the decoration picked out with a black stain. The images on the pearl panels depict a hare, deer, dog and birds as well as angels, Roman emperors, a pikeman, a hunter, an archer, a flautist, a horse rider, a wooded landscape and a lady wearing a laurel crown with an exposed chest. The use of ebony or kingwood veneers and engraved bone banding relates closely with the table cabinets produced in Northern Italy in the first decades of the 17th century.