A North Italian walnut and fruitwood ‘alla certosina’ casket, probably Tuscany, late 15th/early 16th century

Carlo de Carlo, Florence;

and thence by family descent;

their sale, Semenzato Florence, 18-19 October 2000, lot 202;

private collection, Lombardy, Italy;

Sotheby's, London, Old Master Sculpture and Works of Art, 3 December 2014, lot 74.

The technique of 'certosina' (also known as lavoro di intarsio or intarsia alla certosina) is a type of inlaid work made with polygonal tesserae of various coloured woods and bone arranged in geometric patterns. It is known as alla certosina after the Carthusian church in Pavia, not very far from Genoa which has an altarpiece decorated in this technique. Certosina is traditionally thought to have been made in Genoa or the Veneto region in northern Italy, and reached its apogee between circa 1450 and 1525.

However, Spain was also a centre of production, based on the abstract geometric, and sometime floral ornamentation (M. Rosser-Owen, Islamic Arts from Spain, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 2010, p.89.) The art of inlaying small fragments of different coloured woods in geometrical patterns existed in Andalusia during the Nasrid period (1232–1492).

As a result, certosina caskets are frequently miscatalogued, as their distinctive inlaid decoration has historically led to examples being variously attributed to either Italian or Spanish workshops.

A similar casket (inv. CE03050) is at the National Museum of Decorative Arts in Madrid.