Conservation generously funded by Christopher Todd Page.

Inspired in shape by antique sarcophagi and commonly referred to as forzieri or cassoni, marriage chests were produced in pairs and usually donated by the groom’s family to the newlyweds. Their function was manifold: to carry the bride’s trousseau to her husband’s house during the wedding parade; to decorate the main bedchamber, often around beds; to encourage, through their pictorial imagery, the success of a marriage and the conception of offspring; to store and keep precious textiles; and to sit on them. 

The cassone at the Galleria di Palazzo Cini is an extraordinarily early example of a marriage chest. Indeed, the scenes depicting themes of medieval romances such as the hunt of love (caccia d’amore), the fountain of love (fonte d’amore), and the garden of love (giardino d’amore), demonstrate that this cassone was in fact meant for a newly married couple. Even the figural decoration—ladies on horseback, crowned riders with falcons, and lovers standing by the fountain of love—has its origins in courtly love literature. Moreover, although largely abraded, the front panel still bears the arms of one of the two families involved in the wedding—the Del Riccio antico, a family first documented in Florence in 1360 that resided in the Oltrarno quarter of Santo Spirito.

The identification of the donors suggests that the Cini chest was made in Florence. Further evidence in this regard is provided by two chests whose decoration is in all similar to the one under discussion. One is housed at the Victoria & Albert Museum and it is believed it had been stored at the Hospital of Santa Maria Nuova, Florence, before coming onto the art market where it was purchased in 1884. An even more conclusive indication is the second chest—formerly in the collection of John Temple Leader at the Castello di Vincigliata, Fiesole, and now in a private collection in Milan—that bears the arms of the Capponi and the Larioni families, all from Florence. Finally, these types of chests, commonly known as damsels’ chests (cassoni a donzelle), were so sought-after to be exported in large quantities from Florence to France. An example is provided by the 14th-century merchant of Prato Francesco Datini, who was active in the Avignon market since the 1360s where he sold, among other luxurious items, pairs of Florentine “damsels’ chests […] painted of vermilion or azure ground.”

The analysis of the technique and figural imagery has proven extremely useful in approximating the date of the Cini chest. Studies have shown that the figures decorating the chest were originally molded in plaster and then applied onto the panel, painted, and guilt. The employed technique is similar to the so-called pastiglia, a method first described by Cennino Cennini in his Treatise of Painting, arguably written around the 1390s. An earlier dating, however, cannot be ruled out. First of all, Simone Martini’s Miracle of the Blessed Agostino shows that flattened iron bands similar to those of the Cini chest were in use as early as the 1320s. In addition, scholars have pointed out that the figures decorating the chest wear long dresses tight at the bust and with pendant sleeves, a fashion that was at its height in the 1350s and disappeared by the beginning of the 1360s. All things considered, it is therefore reasonable to infer that the Cini chest was produced in Florence around the second half of the 14th century.

The wooden marriage chest was suffering from several serious condition problems necessitating an urgent conservation intervention. The structural support was very degraded, particularly on the lid and around the bottom of the chest due to damage from wood-boring insects. The legibility of the painted decoration was obscured by heavy areas of overpainting and other glues and stucco fills added in previous conservation attempts. The metal elements of the chest were no longer providing adequate support and had been heavily covered with brown paint. Conservation treatment by Stefania Sartori is now underway to meticulously address each of these issues. 

Unidentified Florentine artist
Marriage Chest
Second half of the 14th century, poplar, gesso figures on alternating blue and red grounds, and reinforced with flattened iron bands<
52 x 144 x 58,5cm
Galleria di Palazzo Cini

Galleria di Palazzo Cini: Homepage

Bacchi, Andrea and Andrea De Marchi, eds. La Galleria di Palazzo Cini. Dipinti, sculture, oggetti d’arte. Venice: Marsilio, 2016

Bayer, Andrea, ed. Arte and Love in Renaissance Italy. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art; New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2008

Miziołek, Jerzy. “Cassoni istoriati with Torello and Saladin: Observations on the Origins of a New Genre of Trecento Art in Florence.” Studies in the History of Art, 61 (2002): 442-469. Link to the article

Miziołek, Jerzy. Renaissance Weddings and the Antique. Italian Domestic Paintings from the Lanckoroński Collection. Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider, 2018. Link to the book

Mosher Stuard, Susan. Gilding the Market: Luxury and Fashion in Fourteenth-Century Italy. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006

Witthoft, Brucia. “Marriage Rituals and Marriage Chests in Quattrocento Florence.” Artibus et Historiae, 1982, 3, 5 (1982): 43-59

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