Casket with the Three Theological Virtues, Northern Italy, c. 1525-c. 1550. Gold, enamel, rock crystal, and lapis lazuli, 4.2 × 8.4 × 4.9 cm. Art Institute of Chicago, Gift of Marilynn B. Alsdorf, 1992.555.

Miniature caskets might have been used in the Renaissance to house jewels or possibly saintly relics. This example features panels of engraved rock crystal, an extremely hard material of great clarity and polish that is carved only with patience and skill. The emblematic figures depicted here are modeled after the work of the sixteenth-century Italian painter Raphael.