Marriage chest. Embriachi workshop. Venice, XV century.

Marriage chest. Embriachi workshop. Venice, XV century.
Carved bone.
Wooden core.
Measurements: 17 x 24 x 13 cm.

The marriage chest in question, made in the famous Embriachi workshop, is a magnificent example of the sumptuary art produced in Venice during the Quattrocento. This workshop, active mainly between the late 14th and mid-15th centuries, specialized in the manufacture of luxurious objects for the nobility and the gentry, characterized by a wooden structure covered with carved bone or ivory plaques and inlaid elements, especially certosine (a geometric inlay in dark wood and ivory or bone), as seen in this chest-casket.

Embriachi's production not only reveals a remarkable technical mastery, but also a narrative sensibility in keeping with the commemorative and symbolic functions of the objects. In this particular case, the chest, intended to commemorate a marital union, articulates its decoration through a succession of figurative scenes carved in bone, presented in bas-relief on modular plates. The narrative structure refers to an intimate story, probably the courtship, betrothal or idealized episodes of the couple's life together. Two characters (the spouses) appear repeatedly in different attitudes: conversing, holding hands, exchanging gestures of affection or courtesy. This recurrence of the same figures suggests an almost sequential will, a frieze of love that turns the chest into a closed and allegorical story, at the same time deeply personal.

The formal language responds to the refined and slightly archaizing style characteristic of the Embriachi: elongated figures, clothes folded with a certain linear rigidity, solemn gestures and a conception of space that is barely insinuated. The scenes enjoy a lively expressiveness thanks to the economy of means and the delicacy of the carving. It is not a naturalistic realism in the Florentine style, but rather a narrative preciosity typical of international Gothic, adapted here to the Venetian taste for the decorative and the intimate.

On the cover, two stylized angels hold a phylactery, floating on a vegetal background of stylized leaves. This motif reinforces the symbolic character of the piece: the angels, as celestial mediators, guard the bond that the box represents. In the part of the vault (the highest plate of the lid) these angels reappear, this time holding each other by a flower, symbol of both purity and conjugal love. This duplication emphasizes the spiritual dimension of the marital bond, understood as a union blessed by the sacred.

The ensemble is thus part of a rich tradition of Venetian nuptial chests, in which marriage is conceived not only as a social contract, but also as an affective story. Unlike other Tuscan chests of the same century, such as the Florentine cassoni painted with mythological or literary episodes, the Embriachi chests tend to a more direct and sentimental representation, emphasizing the role of the couple as the symbolic nucleus.

In short, this chest from the Embriachi workshop is a jewel of miniature narrative art, a container of precious goods and a symbol of an even more precious good: the loving and spiritual union of two souls under the tutelage of the divine.

A similar piece, also by the Embriachi family, is exhibited in the Cathedral Museum of Ourense: the Arqueta de Santa Eufemia. Also in the Bode Museum in Berlin we find the Jewel Box with pairs of lovers or Skulpturensammlung (inv. no. 690; acquired in 1835 for the royal collection "Kunstkammer"), of the same period and from the same Genoese workshop.