Pledge of love - contemporary interpretations of medieval “love caskets

Marriage contracts and dowries, friendship and love gifts, jewellery, souvenirs and personal possessions were at that time kept in the medieval “love casket”. The design and decoration of many such caskets was often influenced by their contents. The roughly 35 artists of the Applied art group Cologne and the working group of German craftsmen in North-Rhine Westphalia take the outer form and special functions of this small piece of furniture as a basis for their own contemporary interpretations of objects with a similar or comparable function. These reflect a profound change in human (love) relationships and the way in which they are expressed, and in the pledges of love - proof of love given material expression.