Thursday, October 27, 2016

The Other Casket with a 'Garden'

Art Institute of Chicago Casket - inside top lid is a scene
I often see listings in books of a certain number of caskets with internal gardens and know of many of them.  Found another the other day and I wanted to bring it up with everyone!  Especially as many of you are working on entries to the contest at the end of the year!

This isn't exactly a garden, but a scene inside the top cavity of a double casket at the Art Institute of Chicago.  During this course, frustratingly the museum has been going through a whole series of moves (due to the building of a massive extension) and then a horrible leak that was caught early and as I understand didn't cause damage to the collection but the pieces were blocked off to fix it.  So while I have made quite a few trips to Chicago - I haven't been able to see the caskets in the collection!

I was pursuing the internet one night to relax the other day and came across a JSTOR listing of an old article on the Rebecca Stonier casket in the Art Institute of Chicago Quarterly (Vol 53/54, Vol 53 no 4 - Vol 54 no.1 (Feb 1960) pp. 24-27).  You can read the article by clicking on Read Online (Free) and making a guest account and putting it on your 'bookshelf'.  That will allow you to look at it.  On the third page is a black and white picture of the open casket showing the inside of the top.  There are little dressed dolls that are in a scene inside!

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