BETH MATTISON, Andrew W. Mellon Curator of Academic Programming and Curator of European Art
This coffret belongs to a group of about 130 surviving boxes made in northern Europe between the late 15th and the end of the 16th centuries. Constructed from wood, covered in boiled leather, and strengthened with iron fastenings, these boxes belonged to bourgeois and noble owners. A silk lining and a print pasted in the interior of the lid complete the box, also called a coffret. The fastenings on the exterior long sides of the box would hold straps in place to allow the owner to carry the box like a backpack. Meanwhile, the interior is sized to hold a book of hours and other small, personal items. These are the precious objects that medieval owners would have sought to keep safe while traveling. The presumed users of these boxes are especially women, who were also important patrons of books of hours. The Hood Museum's example has two locks, one hidden behind a hinged panel, suggesting the need to secure its contents.
The coffrets were produced in France and the western German-speaking lands, as evidenced by the choice of the prints in their interiors. This particular print was colored in by its owner; the somewhat messy, amateur application of paint is characteristic of the early hand-coloring of the turn of the 16th century. The coloring of a print, especially a devotional image such as this one, could carry religious resonance. The print in this box, representing the Arrest of Christ, is a unique surviving example, closely related to a variation that is pasted inside another coffret belonging to the collection of the Bibliothèque nationale de France. A painting in the Louvre that once formed part of a triptych presents the same formal elements and possibly served as inspiration for the printmaker, Jean d'Ypres, who made numerous popular woodcuts. The repetition of imagery between various works of art suggests the shared networks of production and viewership in 16th-century Paris.
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