16th Century Boxes

Hostiary. Bronze. 16th century. A circular, tubular bronze box with a finial lid, to which a piece of tubing is attached, forming a press for the interior of the case. It features a...

Elegant solid walnut small box, entirely hand-carved. The rectangular chest features an opening top, ideal for storing objects. The front, back, and sides are decorated with geometri...

An extraordinarily rare and visually striking 16th-century Venetian iron treasure coffer, showcasing the height of Renaissance artistry and engineering. Crafted in the early to mid-1...

Rare Venetian 16th century Italian traveling jewelry chest profusely decorated in Arabesque black and gilt decoration featuring rare specimen stone drawer fronts in a Palladian archi...

The soft, matte texture and eroded wear of this petite porcelain box suggest it spent many years submerged in saltwater, likely excavated from a sunken trade ship carrying ceramic ex...

The soft, matte texture and eroded wear of this petite porcelain box suggest it spent many years submerged in saltwater, likely excavated from a sunken trade ship carrying ceramic ex...

An exceptional Indo-Portuguese colonial mother-of-pearl veneered casket with silver mounts India, Gujarat, 2nd half of the 16th century, the silver mounts Goa or probably Lisbon Measures: H. 16 x W. 24.6 x D. 16.1 cm An exceptional Gujarati casket with a rectangular box and truncated pyramidal lid (with slopes on each side and a flat top) made from exotic wood, probably teak (Tectona grandis), covered with a mother-of-pearl mosaic. The tesserae, cut from the shell of the green turban sea snail (Turbo marmoratus, a marine gastropod) in the shape of fish scales, are pinned to the wooden structure with silver ball-headed nails. The casket is set on bracket feet on the corners. The masterfully engraved decoration of the silver mounts follows the most refined and erudite Mannerist repertoire of rinceaux and ferroneries dating from the mid-16th century. The high quality and refinement of the silver mounts and, likewise, the silver nails that replaced the original brass pins used to hold the mother-of-pearl tesserae in place indicate the work of a silversmith probably working in Lisbon in the second half of the 16th century. The Indian origin of this production, namely from Cambay (Khambhat) and Surat in the present state of Gujarat in north India, is, as for the last three decades, consensual and fully demonstrated, not only by documentary and literary evidence - such as descriptions, travelogues and contemporary archival documentation - but also by the survival in situ of 16th-century wooden structures covered in mother-of-pearl tesserae. A fine example is a canopy decorating the tomb (dargah) of the Sufi saint, Sheik Salim Chisti (1478-1572) in Fatehpur Sikri in Agra district in the state of Uttar Pradesh, north India. This is an artistic production, geometric in character and Islamic in nature, where usually the mother-of-pearl tesserae form complex designs of fish scales or, similar to the dishes also made using the same technique, with the thin brass sheets and pins, stylized lotus flowers. The truncated pyramidal shape corresponds, like their contemporary tortoiseshell counterparts also made in Gujarat, to a piece of furniture used in the Indian subcontinent within the Islamic world prior to the arrival of the first Portuguese. This shape, in fact, is very old and peculiar to East-Asian caskets, chests or boxes used to contain and protect Buddhist texts, the sutras. A similar chest is the famous and large reliquary chest from Lisbon cathedral that once contained the relics of the city's patron saint, Saint Vincent. Both match in shape, having the same kind of socle or pedestal and bracket feet, and in their engraved silver mountings, featuring the same type of refined, erudite decoration. Their differences lie in the silver borders that frame the entire length of the edges of the chest (both the box and the lid), pinned with silver nails, and on the lock plate, shaped like a coat of arms in the Lisbon example. Given the exceptional dimensions of the reliquary casket...

A large Japanese Namban lacquer arqueta coffer for the Portuguese market Kyoto, Momoyama-period, late 16th century In Hinoki cypress lacquered in ...

Impressive wrought iron tabletop safe with engraved decoration and original patina. This type of safe was commonly used in the 16th and 17th centuries to hold valuables, alms, or doc...

The soft, matte texture and eroded wear of this petite porcelain box suggest it spent many years submerged in saltwater, likely excavated from a sunken trade ship carrying ceramic ex...

A fine and unusual Japanese black lacquer and mother of pearl inlaid box, Momoyama Period, 16th century, Japan. The large box and cover featu...

Superb late 16th century signed colonial Japanese Namban export lacquer coffer Momoyama period, late 16th/early 17th century, inscribed 'Arisato' on the bottom H. 30.5 x W. 43...

The soft, matte texture and eroded wear of this petite porcelain box suggest it spent many years submerged in saltwater, likely excavated from a sunken trade ship carrying ceramic ex...

Chest. Carved wood, metal. Spanish school, 16th century. Rectangular casket with a flat lid decorated on the outside with a series of figurative reliefs in a symmetrical arrangemen...

Rare 16th century Nuremberg box In iron, measurements: 13 x 18 x 12 cm Good condition.

Hispano-Moresque Mudéjar Bone-Inlaid Walnut Chest
 Spain, 16th–17th century 
Walnut, bone inlay, iron fittings
 44.5 × 30.5 × 18 cm This rectangular walnut chest, richly ornamented ...

The soft, matte texture and eroded wear of this petite porcelain box suggest the it spent many years submerged in saltwater, likely excavated from a sunken trade ship carrying cerami...

The soft, matte texture and eroded wear of this petite porcelain box suggest the it spent many years submerged in saltwater, likely excavated from a sunken trade ship carrying cerami...

The soft, matte texture and eroded wear of this petite porcelain box suggest it spent many years submerged in saltwater, likely excavated from a sunken trade ship carrying ceramic ex...

A magnificent antique fall-front box with scarce Medieval period bronze lockplate and hasp attributed to Jacopo and Lodovico del Duca. Featuring an important Lockplate and Hasp designed circa 1570, exact date of manufacture unknown, attributed to the late 16th century Roman foundry of Jacopo 1520-1604) and Ludovico (1551-1601) del Duca, with no apparent signatures or hallmarks which is typical of the era, but we did not remove it and inspect the back. Boxes such as this hand various uses but were frequently used by merchants as a writing box - slope during travel and trade, as a small coffer - strong box for storing important documents, money and valuables, as well as a jewelry casket. This hand-crafted European drop-front box dates to the late 19th century, signed L'PUPLET, adorned with a significantly older Italian fine quality cast bronze lockplate with intricate Renaissance era reliefs, including figures, coat-of-arms, and elongated hasp, mounted on a chest of drawers form solid wooden case, wrapped in exotic Japanesque embossed and gilded metallic paper, having a locking fall-front panel with original key included, opening to reveal three interior drawers, all lined in red velvet. circa 1875 The visually striking textured wallpaper covering the box's exterior displays bamboo, birds, and flowers in the oriental Japanesque taste popular in Europe in the 1860s and 1870s following the forced reopening of foreign trade with Japan in 1858 and the ensuing Japonisme craze. To the interior of the fall front panel is a gilt circular stamp with the somewhat obscured name of the workshop or store (likely) "L'PUPLET" and the city "Burxelles" which is in Brussels, indicating the box was likely made or retailed there. Marks to box: L'PUPLET, BRUXELLES Inscription: 13, 14, 15 (Interior drawers inscribed on the verso of their backboards in script from top to bottom, respectively) Provenance / Acquisition: The origin of the elaborate lockplate with hasp on the front of the piece is more intriguing. At least 76 lockplates of this design have been recorded in major museums, private collections, and in the antiques trade across the Western World. For example, lockplates of this pattern are in the collections of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the State Museum of Prussian Cultural Heritage in Berlin, the Museum Cicico in Bologna, The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Dallas Museum of Art in Texas, the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, the Museo di Palazzo Venezia in Rome, the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC.[1] Specialists in Renaissance bronzes, especially Charles Avery...

Important Renaissance Medical Box. Spanish Or Italian Workshop, Around 1550 Renaissance Medical Casket with stepped lid and vaulted flanked dome. Polychro...

The soft, matte texture and eroded wear of this petite porcelain box suggest it spent many years submerged in saltwater, likely excavated from a sunken trade ship carrying ceramic ex...

The soft, matte texture and eroded wear of this petite porcelain box suggest it spent many years submerged in saltwater, likely excavated from a sunken trade ship carrying ceramic ex...

The soft, matte texture and eroded wear of this petite porcelain box suggest the it spent many years submerged in saltwater, likely excavated from a sunken trade ship carrying cerami...

Spanish Renaissance casket, 16th century In carved, polychrome and gilded wood decorated with a vase with horns of plenty, heads of cherubs and fruits. In the lock a shield with two ...

Small box with opening top, slightly convex urn front with shaped shelf support, decorated on the front with carved tablet, while the rest of the object is simply painted. The front started with four pilasters that create three reserves, the two lateral pilasters have two twisted columns on a blue background, the central pilasters are instead painted with gold candelabra...

Rectangular body casket with semicircular lid made of carved wood and covered with a worked leather that has been reinforced with a series of forged iron fittings, material in which ...

Mudejar-style chest. Spain, circa 1500. Wood and leather. A chest with a wooden core and leather lining. The leather has been embossed with stylised vegetal motifs on both sides, i...