Beschreibung:

BOOK COFFRET.] France, 15th century.
BOOK COFFRET.] France, 15th century. 125 x 120 x 60 mm. A cuir bouilli and cuir ciselé coffret, most probably intended for a book, hinged and bound with ironwork fittings. Provenance : purchased from A. Rosenthal Ltd., 17 October 1957. Edgar B. Frank in Old French Ironwork (1950), plate 291 shows a silimar book box: "Caskets, at least in France, were given different names depending on the use for which they were destined, sometimes on the material of which they were made, or their specialized shapes; thus, for instance, the cassette was used to carry money and sometimes personal belongings, the porte-missael to preserve precious books of hours, which the people of the Gothic period valued so highly... One type, very much in vogue in France during the fifteenth century, was made entirely of heavy sheet iron and had a lid of semi-cylindrical shape. Both the lid and the body of the caskets were bound with iron strips pierced in Gothic patterns and often in two layers of leather imprisoned between these bands and the metal of the casket..."