Finch & Co

Medium / Material

Wood, Tortoiseshell, Silver

Description

A Dutch East Indies Small Domed Tortoiseshell Casket with Wriggleworked Silver Mounts and Oval Lock Plate with key
The inside now lined with early 19th Century wallpaper
Late 17th Century

Size: 9.5cm high, 13cm wide, 8cm deep – 3¾ ins high, 5 ins wide, 3 ins deep

Literature

In 1570 Queen Catherine of Portugal began the fashion for tortoiseshell and is said to have owned twenty-two pieces by the end of that year. The demand from Europe for objects made of tortoiseshell was quickly taken up by the Dutch V.O.C. as well as the Portuguese traders and they supplied these exotic goods to a growing European luxury market for nearly 250 years.