Conférence "L’Histoire de Pâris : un coffret de mariage de l’atelier des Embriachi"

Baldassare degli Embriachi was born in Florence in the mid-14th century. Specialising in the art of tableware, around 1370 he founded a flourishing workshop, which he later set up in Venice. Little by little, this factory established itself in the production of refined objects combining bone - rather than ivory - plates, decorated with figurative reliefs, and wooden rods.

These objects, which competed with the magnificent but very expensive ivory pieces produced in France and Paris, appealed to bourgeois connoisseurs, who were happy to be able to acquire pieces that imitated precious works of art and evoked the luxury of the great, but on very favourable terms.

Although this type of production was not exclusive, it was primarily in the field of caskets that this workshop prospered. They came in a variety of shapes and were often lavishly decorated with scenes from scripture or mythology, in a recognisably stiff style.

Finally, there were even more ambitious productions that appealed to princes, particularly in France, such as the Duke of Berry or the Duke of Burgundy...