Ontwerp voor een met pietre dure panelen ingelegd met verguld brons gemonteerd kistje 1710 - 1725

This design for a casket, inlaid with pietre dure panels and mounted with gilded bronze, was made by Giovanni Battista Foggini, sometime between the late 17th and early 18th century. The term pietre dure refers to the practice of creating pictures from precisely cut and assembled colored stones, like marble, jasper, and agate. It was a specialty of Florence, Italy, where Foggini worked. This design gives a good sense of the opulence that could be achieved with this technique. The effect comes not just from the intrinsic beauty of the stones, but the skill needed to manipulate them. Each tiny tessera had to be carefully shaped, ground and polished before assembly. While the design may have come from Foggini, the actual production of such an object would have involved many hands, each contributing a specific expertise. It's a perfect example of how an object can embody a whole social network of labor.