The Death of a Becket

This wonderful piece of artwork is not mine, rather it belongs to a box-maker in 1173-80 Great Britain. It is called the Reliquary Casket with Scenes from the Martyrdom of Saint Thomas Becket, and is made out of gilded silver, niello, and a glass cabochon, all set over a tinted foil. It is 2 & 3/16 inches wide, 2 & 3/4 inches long, and 1 & 7/8 inches tall. 

This abomination on the other hand is most definitely mine. The poor unknown soul who created the first box just had a heart attack in his grave after seeing this horrid replication. It is made out of .7 mm of lead, terrible drawing skills and the lack of a ruler. It was created on a red couch at around 4:37 to 5:27 PM, November 19, 2017, and now belongs to the bark of some torn down tree in the woods. 

Both of these boxes are supposed to represent the death of martyr, Thomas Becket, the English saint and archbishop of Canterbury. This box represents the physical death of Becket, and reflects how much of a martyr Becket was. 

This box has both portrait and landscape styles of art, the portraits being the angel on the left panel (or the horrifying person smiling at you, whichever choice looks more noticeable) and the painting above it (I have no clue as to what that is, but I thought it was some form of an artistic plant).  While both styles were popular, the combination of both could be seen as a way to start a new method of painting. 

The box is outlined in gold, and has a red jewel on top. However, the pictures are black and gray. The color could possibly signify death, because the scenes on the box show Thomas Becket's death. However, the color scheme could also signify power. Gold was a symbol of power at the time, and red is a very dynamic color. The box being gold and red could symbolize the power that Becket had during his lifetime, and while he may be dead, his power will still live on. The combination of colors implies a very morbid approach to the martyrdom of Becket, and could suggest the power beyond death that Becket could have on his followers.



The shape of this box is first and foremost... a box (actually, it's a sphere... ). However, it has a pyramid shape on top with the red jewel. This gives it more of an elegant appearance than an actual box would (because yes, those martyrs always get such nice things). 

The box is in a dark light, and this could be due to the death theme that surrounds the box in the paintings. 

The box (or fancy pyramid thing, whatever works), is composed so that Becket's death is only in a few places. The box itself is dominated by angels who are blessing the death, which brings some religious context into the paintings. Nobody wants to see their beloved religious leader be brutally killed by four ungrateful guards. Therefore, the inclusion of angels could help followers feel at ease about the death because they know that Becket is in a better place.

This art is predominately religious. It is detailing the death/ murder of Thomas Becket, which provides a religious context to the area at the time. This context is religious because it is detailing the death of an English saint and a leader. During the time, religion was important to the people, so the death of a leader was important to them and even started a pilgrimage. 

This art also contains a political context because it shows the murder of an important figure. The fact that people knew it was murder was important to them because they knew how powerful government was and how powerful religion was. It could strike either a sense of fear or a sense of vengeance in followers because they would be upset at the crown for murdering their leader. 

Overall, this box (and my rather terrible replication of it) has a death theme surrounding it due to its dark colors, and it also has a few contexts such as political and religious contexts.