A South German Ivory-Inlaid Ebony Casket, probably Augsburg, late 16th Century

The Southern German city of Augsburg became a major centre of the European luxury market in the 16th and 17th centuries, with artists specialising in silver and silver gilt works, clocks and automata, and cabinets and small boxes manufactured with imported tropical woods and inlaid with exotic precious materials like ivory, tortoiseshell and mother of pearl by the over 200 master cabinetmakers (Kunstschreiner) recorded in the city in 1590.

An almost identical casket, most likely from the same workshop was formerly with Daniel Katz, London and now with Coulborn & Sons, Sutton Coldfield. The distinctive zoomorphic inlay of stylised leaping hounds, foxes, deer, wild boar, rabbits, birds and other fauna is based on hunting scenes by the Nuremberg printmaker Virgil Solis (1514-1562), which were used as design sources for engraved and inlaid ornament on caskets, games boards, powder flasks, parade shields and hunting horns [fig.1]. Similar animal decoration appears along the borders of an Augsburg game board in the Victoria & Albert Museum, London (567-1899; see Nick Humphrey, 'Printed Sources for a South German Games Board', V&A Online Journal, Issue No. 7 Summer 2015), and also on a small rectangular casket sold Sotheby's London, 2 December 2008, lot 56.