AN ITALIAN WALNUT, FRUITWOOD AND BONE MARQUETRY 'CERTOSINA' CHEST

The certosina work is a luxorious pictorial woodwork common in Italy by the fifteenth century. This special technique in which small polygonal tesserae of wood, bone, ivory, mother-of-pearl and other materials were inlaid in geometric patterns into a wooden base, was influenced by Islamic geometrical arabesque. The characteristic geometrical and floral design of this certosina work is very comparable to an exhibited chest in the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, also illustrated in J. Morley, Furniture. The Western Tradition, London, 1999, p. 102, pl. 174.