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Late 19th century
Artist: Charles Désiré Lucien Le Thierry d’Ennequin (1860-1929)
Date: Late 19th century
Material: Bronze, leather
Dimensions: 42 x 44.4 x 31.8 cm
Weight: 62 kg
Provenance: Nystad antiquairs Lochem BV, Amsterdam (since 1980)
Literature: Nystad antiquairs Lochem BV, Amsterdam, Sculptures Catalogue, 1980, no. 31, p. 72-74.
The maker of this casket, Charles Désiré Lucien Le Thierry d’Ennequin, was a lawyer as well as a sculptor. In his testament he bequeathed several of his sculptures and collection pieces to the Palais des Beaux Arts in Lille, among which was the present casket. The museum selected four works, the casket not among them. Since then the casket remained in the private collection of the artist and his family.
In total there are six reliefs on the casket, which depict the following Old Testament stories:
1) The scene on the top of the lid depicts Adam and Eve. Eve holds in her hand the apple of knowledge, to which both inscriptions on the lid refer. The Hebrew (Genesis 3:5 ) reads: ‘ידעי טוב ורע וייתם כאלהים ונפקחו עיניכם כי ביום אכלכם ממנו כי ידע אלהים’ (‘For God knows that on the day that you eat thereof, your eyes, you will be opened, and you will be like angels, knowing good and evil.’) The Hieratic text behind Eve conveys a message along the same lines.
2) The scene at the front of the casket shows the story of Abraham and Sarah before Pharaoh (Genesis 12:10-20). The scene is set in Pharaoh’s Egyptian palace, showing a view of the pyramids in the background.
3) The story of Judah and Tamar (Genesis 38:6-20) is depicted in a square relief. We can identify Judah to the left, approaching Tamar.
4) The anterior relief represents Abraham and Sarah visited by the three angels (Genesis 18:1-16).
5) The fourth side relief features Lot and his daughters (Genesis 19:32-36).
6) The inner lid relief depicts Bathsheba, spied upon by King David from his palace balcony in the upper right corner, while she is bathing. It is the only story not taken from Genesis, but from the book of Samuel (Samuel 11:2).
The interior of the casket is decorated with red-brown embossed leather, with geometrical patterns. The bottom of the casket is decorated with three squares. The central square contains a bunch of grapes and is flanked by two squares containing goblets, probably alluding to marriage. According to Le Thierry d’Ennequin, the chiselling was done after his designs by the leather craftsman Auguste Ambroise Saint-André de Lignereux.
The overarching theme of these stories, and thus of the casket, seems to be the sin of the flesh, alluding to the moral wasteland of the human race.
