AN INDIAN IVORY CASKET WITH CARVINGS AFTER EUROPEAN PRINTS

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East-India, Berhampur, circa 1870

 

The solid ivory casket carved to all the sides with foliate designs, the centre of the lid with classical figures and a temple after (two or more) European prints, to the left the figure of Goddess Athena after a print by Jost Amman in 1579, in the centre and to the right the carvings of a flying angel holding a ribbon with the text sic itur ad astra (thus one journey to the stars), a citation from Virgil's Aeneid (Book XI, line 641), are after a print by Giovanni Giacomo de Rossi, published in 1660, in the centre of the composition is the Roman Goddess Victoria inside the templum virtutis (temple of virtue) and to the right of it one figure is pointing the other the way to virtue, on four claw-feet.

 

H. 10 x W. 18 x D. 11.2 cm