Writing Box

The disposition of this sumptuous writing box is reminiscent of a slanted pulpit for supporting open books; here, however, the form is adapted in a decorative manner, as the surface does not have a base molding to prevent even small books from sliding off of it. In addition, the delicate ornamentation of the top side is intended for display. The type may have evolved from seats with slanted reading and writing supports in front that were adapted from choir-stall designs. Used as part of the personal study or studiolo, such a seat is depicted in Petrarch in His Studio, a drawing of about 1400.(1) The painting of Saint Jerome by Domenico Ghirlandaio in the Ognissanti, Florence, in which the saint contemplates while sitting at his slanted writing desk is one of the best-known representations.(2) The popularity of the form throughout Europe is documented by contemporary works made in Nuremberg.(3) The imperial town had close economic and cultural relations with Venice, where the Lehman piece was probably made. A woodcut of 1499 illustrates a “Venetian Living-Room” with a gentleman sitting in front of a similar slanted box that is placed on a trestle table.(4) The writing box is the product of the luxury industry that was so characteristic for the Serenissima, the republic of Venice that controlled wide parts of the Eastern Mediterranean. The harbor city-state held strong international relations and, next to Portugal, was one of the main entrances for exotic luxury wares and raw materials for artisans.(5) The Lehman box can be associated with a small group of lavishly decorated boxes, cabinets, and chair covers. The combination of gilding, silvering, paint, and tooled ornaments points to a hitherto unknown workshop or small group of masters working for several decades in this rather unusual, highly effective but costly style. A slightly later collector’s cabinet with a fall front illustrating the stories of Adam and Eve and Noah’s Ark is in the Deutsches Ledermuseum, Offenbach.(6) A set of six armchairs with similar decorated leather backs from the Palazzo Trivulzio, Milan, is in the Museo Civico, Turin.(7) More objects are part of the Collezione Cagnola and another was recently at auction.(8) The coat of arms is similar to those of a branch of the Roman Orsini and Solofra families, the so-called Orsini di Solofra (existed 1555 – 1809).(9) However, the specific holder is not identified. The iconography suggests that the object may have been a diplomatic present or a commission by a military commander. Putti, especially when innocently naked, allude to and mimic human actions; here they take on the brutality of mercenaries using the then modern war technology of canons in conjunction with the traditional sword and shield.(10) The scene may depict an episode of the legendary Hannibal story, which would underscore the suggested identification of the Orsini di Solofra. Furthermore, the elephant was a symbol of power and strength, but also of a ruler’s magnanimity.(11) The elephant had vanished from Europe with the Roman Empire, and it was not before the gift, from Caliph Harun al-Rashid (r. 786 – 806) of such an exotic creature to Charlemagne about the year 800 that the species was seen again. In Italy, the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II of Hohenstaufen was accompanied by an elephant in 1229 in Cremona. However, the prominent depiction of the species on the present object was likely influenced by the Italian fascination with Hanno or Annone, the white elephant that arrived as a gift from King Manuel I of Portugal to Pope Leo X in 1514 and that lived near the old Saint Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican. After its death in 1516, the beloved animal was immortalized in a fresco by Raphael, a story that captivated all of Europe.(12) All of these rare appearances were widely published, and the image of an elephant on precious objects like the Lehman box came to embody luxury and power.

Catalogue entry from: Wolfram Koeppe. The Robert Lehman Collection. Decorative Arts, Vol. XV. Wolfram Koeppe, et al. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art in association with Princeton University Press, 2012, pp. 284-286.

NOTES:
1. Thornton, Peter. The Italian Renaissance Interior, 1400 – 1600. New York, 1991, pl. 4.
2. Ibid., pl. 79.
3. Hoos, Hildegard. “Ars sine scientianihil est.” Weltkunst 59, no. 16 (15 August), 1989, pp. 2232 – 35.
4. Schottmuller, Frida. Furniture and Interior Decoration of the Italian Renaissance. 2nd ed. Stuttgart, 1928, p. xv, fig. 10.
5. Venice and the Islamic World, 828 – 1797. Exhibition, Institut du Monde Arabe, 2 October 2006 – 18 February 2007; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 27 March – 8 July 2007. Catalogue edited by Stefano Carboni. New York, 2007.
6. Gall, Gunter. d. Deutsches Ledermuseum: Leder, Bucheinband, Lederschnitt, Handvergoldung, Lederwaren, Taschen. Katalog (Deutsches Ledermuseum) 1. Offenbach, 1974, no. 1.41.01, pl. 9; a related fall-front cabinet illustrating the story of Diana and Actaeon is in a private collection in Munich (I am grateful to Peter Dreyer for bringing this cabinet to my attention). See also a leathercovered fall-front cabinet with ornamentation on the outside but revealing an architectural facade with a figural program after opening (sale, Elia Volpi collection, American Art Association, New York, 21 – 23 November 1916, lot 412, ill. [Venetian, sixteenth century]; Odom, William M. A History of Italian Furniture from the Fourteenth to the Early Nineteenth Centuries. 2 vols. Garden City, N.Y., vol. 1, figs. 124, 125); a fall-front leather-covered table cabinet from the Veneto, ca. 1590–1600, shown in Riccardi-Cubitt, Monique. The Art of the Cabinet, including a Chronological Guide to Styles. London, 1992, pp. 32, 174, pl. 18; and a leather-covered cabinet in the Kunstgewerbemuseum, Berlin (Europäische Lederarbeiten vom 14. bis 19. Jahrhundert aus den Sammlungen des Berliner Kunstgewerbemuseums. Exhibition, Kunstgewerbemuseum, 1988. Catalogue. Berlin, 1988, p. 30, no. 31, ill. p. 84 [Venetian, 1550 – 1600]).
7. Windisch-Graetz, Franz. Möbel Europas: Renaissance und Manierismus, vom 15. Jahrhundert bis in die erste Hälfte des 17. Jahrhunderts. Munich, 1983, p. 239, ill. no. 84.
8. For example, Collezione Cagnola, La collezione Cagnola. Vol. 2, Il arazzi, sculture, mobili, ceramiche, edited by Nello Forti Grazzini et al. Busto Arsizio, 1999, p. 130, no. 9, pl. I; a cabinet in the sale, Finarte-Semenzato, Venice, 29 February 2004, lot 140. See also the gilt leather-covered casket in the sale at Sotheby’s, London, 4 July 1996, lot 122. Several boxes of this type are discussed and illustrated in Peter Thornton. “Cassoni, Forzieri, Goffani, and Cassette: Terminology and Its Problems.” Apollo 120 (October), 1984, pp. 246 – 51.
9. Crollalanza, Giovani Battista di. Dizionario storico-blasonico delle famiglie nobili e notabili italiane estinte e fiorenti. 3 vols. Pisa, 1886 – 90. I am grateful to Prince Orsini and Michelangelo Lupo for their advice.
10. Koeppe, Wolfram. “The Swiss Room: Flims, Seventeenth Century.” In Period Rooms in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, by Amelia Peck et al., pp. 58 – 67. New York, 1996.
11. Regarding the significance associated with the elephant in Renaissance iconography, see Koeppe, Die Lemmers-Danforth-Sammlung Wetzlar: Europäische Wohnkultur aus Renaissance und Barock. Heidelberg, 1992, pp. 268 – 69; Musacchio, Jacqueline Marie. “Wives, Lovers, and Art in Italian Renaissance Courts.” In Art and Love in Renaissance Italy. Exhibition, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 11 November 2008 – 16 February 2009; Kimbell Art Museum, 15 March – 14 June 2009. Catalogue edited by Andrea Bayer. New York, 2008, p. 31 and see also fig. 22.
12. Bedini, Silvio A. The Pope’s Elephant. Nashville, 1998; Jordan Gschwend, Annemarie. The Story of Süleyman: Celebrity Elephants and Other Exotica in Renaissance Portugal. Zurich, 2010.

Pauline Ickelheimer. Acquired by Robert Lehman.