Chest
Author: Unknown
Date: 15th century, 1st half
Material: Gilt silver
Dimensions (cm): H 20,5 x W 36,5 x D 10
Provenance: Guimarães, Colegiada de Nossa Senhora da Oliveira
Inventory No.: MAS O 42
Considered a national treasure, this chest has an interior structure of wood, covered outwardly in gold lamina, embossed and engraved silver, with motifs based on foliage.
This chest doesn’t display any iconographic reference or inscription of a religious nature. It is probably a secular chest that was reused for ritual purposes, which turns it into a more curious specimen, because the domestic plate in this period were very scarce.
In 1527 it contained five cases of relics and others tied in a cloth, not identified. In the 17th century, during the priorship of Dom Diogo da Silveira, the coffer was opened and its contents transferred to the coffer of the Cunhas. From then onwards and until the end of the 18th century, it served as container for the smallest casket, used as a Eucharistic urn on Maundy Thursdays, in the Entombment of the Lord.