The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 21, 2025

Cassone

early 1500s

Italy, early 16th century

walnut, painted and gilded
Overall: 54.3 x 168.3 x 51.6 cm (21 3/8 x 66 1/4 x 20 5/16 in.)
Gift of Leonard C. Hanna Jr., for the Coralie Walker Hanna Memorial Collection 1939.189
Location: Not on view

Description

Chests such as this were made in pairs and presented to young women on the occasion of their marriage. They not only provided storage space in the home for clothing and personal effects, but could also be used as a bench to sit on. It was not uncommon for any one room in a Renaissance palace to have several. This chest was in Savoy Castle, near Verzuolo, in the Piedmont region of northern Italy from the 1500s until 1922..
  • Castle of Verzuola, Piedmont, Italy; Leonard C. Hanna, Jr.
  • Milliken, William. "The Coralie Walker Hanna Memorial Collection Gift of Leonard C Hanna." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 26, no. 6 (June 1939): 84-115 Mentioned: p. 94 www.jstor.org
  • Florence and the Arts: Five Centuries of Patronage. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (July 13-September 19, 1971).
  • {{cite web|title=Cassone|url=false|author=|year=early 1500s|access-date=21 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1939.189