Carved Ivory Box

This rectangular shaped casket is formed of thinly sliced ivory plaques fastened together with fine pegs. Three copper-gilt mounts and a rectangular lock plate help to secure the lid to the box. The exterior surface of the casket was once ornamented with painted and gilded decoration, most likely consisting of vegetal roundels, ‘arabesques’ and animals, which have now almost entirely worn away.
This casket forms a group of around two hundred painted ivory caskets attributed to 6th century AH/12th century CE, Sicily. As opposed to carved ivories, these caskets were cheaper and less time consuming to manufacture. They were believed to form part of a larger ‘mass production’ of ivories made in medieval Sicily. During this period, raw ivory was imported from West Africa via commercial routes controlled by the Fatimid rulers of Egypt. Ivories such as this casket were probably produced for members of the Norman nobility who could afford the luxury material from which they were manufactured, and who mixed in circles where an Islamic aesthetic was de rigueur, as it was under Roger II (r. 524-49 AH/1130-54 CE) and his successors. It would not have been unusual for nobles to present such caskets to churches, which is where many have survived as reliquary containers.