BY ANTONIO CORTELAZZO, VICENZA, DATED 1870

Much like his contemporary Alfred Morrison whose patronage almost exclusively supported the work of the celebrated damascener Placido Zuloaga, Sir William Drake, a wealthy lawyer and prodigious collector, acquired numerous objects by the Italian artist Antonio Cortelazzo. Drake was a client of the dealer William Blundell Spence, who additionally supplied works by the accomplished Florentine sculptor Luigi Frullini (d.1897), English art potters the Martin brothers, as well as works by Zuloaga. Drake however found Zuloaga's work `more mechanical and much less artistic than the productions of Cortelazzo' (Rudoe note 29. British Library Add. MSS 38997, f.245). His affinity for Cortelazzo's oeuvre compelled Drake to exhibit the present casket, as well as a ewer and basin now in the Indianapolis Museum of Art, in the artist's stand at the 1872 London International Exhibition to resounding acclaim:
'In the mechanical skill with which he inlays metal upon metal he has his rivals; but in the combination of that process with purity of design and artistic fancy of ornament which distinguishes all his works, he stands unrivalled....the `Coffre' is in intarsia of gold and silver (partly flat and in other parts relief) on steel' (The Art Journal, London, 1872, p. 2).

A related casket almost certainly made for Sir William Spottiswoode (1825-83) is illustrated in J. Lavin, The Art and Tradition of the Zuloagas, Spanish Damascene from the Khalili Collection, 1997, no. 100.