A Garden in a Casket

Image on Christies showing front panel down and internal
garden in place.

There are only a few gardens known to me in caskets, one of which is a grainy picture from Christies of one sold years ago.  In that piece, the front of the casket folds down and reveals a very robust grassy and flowered interior.  Of course I have always had more questions than answers about this casket!

So last night I was surfing the web under different terms to see if anything new popped up (I do this every few weeks and yes, things do pop up!  Sometimes things that have come to auction, sometimes new museum collections on line).  Well, in this case a image of THIS casket showed up as a Getty image that could be licensed.  I can't reproduce it here - but you can go view it.

What they did is lift the tray the garden was made on and place it on the top of the closed casket.  Perhaps that is what it was made to do - using the box as a 'vase'.  But I spent time comparing the sides of the casket to the existing but poorer quality pictures and they are the same piece.  So wonderful to be able to see it much better!!  And what perfect timing after the results of the Casket Toy Contest!

Tricia