£1,134
Auction: Day 2
in the Renaissance style, the hinged cover with a raised and carved figure of a recumbent Cupid above richly carved panels with gryphons, insects, and foliate scrolls, opening to a red velvet lined interior; the sides panels with egg-and-dart and gadrooned borders enclosing carved panels with gryphons, masks and a central roundel with a pair of lovebirds, and raised on carved paw feet, signed ‘GOSI e QUERCI’ on left panel
43cm wide, 35cm high, 30cm deep
Note: Gosi and Querci were both pupils of Pietro Giusti (1822-78), who carved the casket, dated 1857, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which is based on the cassone by Antonio Barli (1453-1516), now in the Museo Civici, Siena, see H. Blairman & Sons, Furniture and Works of Art (1997), no. 12. For biographies of Gosi and Querci see Simone Chiarugi, Botteghe di Mobilieri in Toscana 1780-1900, 1994, I, p. 492 and p. 530.