Case / locket

Italy?, France?

Ornamented with embossed (hammered from the back) grotesques, this oval case, or locket, was probably intended to hold a miniature or wax portrait. The ring fixing allows it to be hung, while the cover both protects and conceals. The arabesque decoration of dense scrolls, foliage and swags is repeated on each side, but the central term figures differ – one being female, the other male.

Earliest Rothschild collector: Alice de Rothschild; b.1847, d.1922

Credit: Accepted by HM Government in lieu of inheritance tax and allocated to the National Trust for display at Waddesdon Manor, 1963