Panel from a Cassone: The Race of the Palio in the Streets of Florence
Medium
tempera and gold on wood
Dimensions
unframed: 42.1 × 139.5 cm · framed: 46.5 × 143.5 × 7 cm
Classification
Painting
Department
Medieval Art
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Holden Collection
Accession Number
1916.801
Tags
male
About this artwork
A cassone was a wooden chest used for the storage of clothing, an essential piece of furniture in Italian homes during the Renaissance and often produced in matched sets. The cassone was often made on the occasion of a marriage and elaborately decorated with painted scenes and gilded moldings. This panel comes from such a painted cassone. It was not uncommon for the painted decoration to represent a memorable event at the time of the marriage. This scene depicts the end of the Palio, a horse rac...