Oak coffer with wrought iron bands, France, 14th century

Chest of clamped-front type with applied iron scrollwork on the front and both sides. The back is plain. The front and sides have with long bands of wrought iron consisting of straight grooved stems, from which spring pairs of scrolls similarly grooved, creating five horizontal rows of scrolls. At each end is a drop ring handle. With 5 keyholes: a central internal lock, two flanking holes with external depression for a missing metal plate (possibly original for an internal bolting system), two outer keyholes for 19th century locks (now missing).

Construction
The front consists of a single plank tenoned into the front stiles. The back consists of 2 wide planks dowelled together, which fit a groove cut into the wide stiles. The sides which are vertically grained are butt jointed to the four stiles, with pegs driven through the back and front stiles into the sides. (This needs to be checked.)

Condition and Modifications
Missing ironwork:
front centre, vertical rod; front bottom left, one scroll; left end, one scroll.

The back stiles and panel, and the bottom rail at both ends appear to be replacements, the wood distressed to appear of greater age.
The PL rear leg has been built up with a slab repair on inner face.
The bottom boards probably replaced, using old or distressed wood that has suffered badly from worm damage.
The lid replaced with square head rivets.
A dark varnish treatment has been applied liberally.
A U-shaped iron strap has been affixed to the interior to support the base.
The single lock is of 19th century date.
On the inside of both front stiles a patch has been roughly carved out for a lock (both of which are missing). Two corresponding iron escutcheons probably 19th century.
On the front is a patch of hammered patch of iron sheet.

Acquired from Emile Peyre of 146 Avenue Malakoff, Paris, at the price of £100.

Listed as (34) 'A rude oak chest held together by curling scrolls of iron; late 13th or early 14th century', p.17-18, in “A Copy of J. Hungerford Pollen’s Report on Monsieur E. Peyre’s Collection of Wood Carving etc” February 1889, (V&A registry file: MA/I/P1086/1)

Emile Peyre (1824-1904) was an architect, and notable collector of French medieval and renaissance artefacts. His house in Paris, at 124 Avenue Malakoff, was described in 1889 as filled ‘from ground floor literally to attic’ with his collection of woodwork, paintings, tapestries and works of art. In 1895 429 pieces of furniture and woodwork, sculpture and metalwork were purchased for the South Kensington Museum (renamed the V&A in 1900), and a selection of objects for the museums in Edinburgh and Dublin, at a cost of £11,878. 16s. 9d. In 1904 he left to the newly founded Musée des Arts-Décoratifs, Paris, nearly 4000 works, transforming their holdings of largely contemporary work into a rich historic collection, along with his personal fortune of nearly one million francs and his papers.

Listed in Peyre's house as no. 164 'Large XIIIth.centy. wooden chest covered with iron' in the 'Inventory of the contents rooms [sic] containing that part of Monsieur Peyre's Collection, iron-work and wood-work which he is willing to sell. The rooms are all on the ground floor of the house.' (In Thomas Armstrong's (Director for Art 1881-98) handwriting, numbered 1-329, description and price, arranged by room.) It was located in a room on the ground floor overlooking the garden, (the room marked E in an annotated sketch plan of the ground floor of Peyre's house, which apparently accompanied a letter dated 28/2/1895 from Armstrong to Major General Sir John Donnelly, secretary of the Science and Art Department).

Comparable chests:
Paris, Musee des Arts Decoratifs PE982, 89 x 165 x 79cm; in Penelope Eames, Furniture in England, France and the Netherlands from the 12th to the 15th century, Furniture History Society (London, 1977), cat. no. 33. Described as c.1200-50, and inferior to the Carnavalet chest in respects except its use of collars to mask joints (in use by c.1125). Published by MdAD (2006) as 14th century.

Musée Municipal de la Ville de Paris Hôtel Carnavalet (said to have come from Saint-Denis); in Penelope Eames, Furniture in England, France and the Netherlands from the 12th to the 15th century, Furniture History Society (London, 1977), cat. no. 34. Described as c.1250-70, a later date than the early 13th century date offered by Jacqueline Viaux (1962, 35).

See also the oak chest in All Saints Church Icklingham (Suffolk) with scrolling ironwork mounts, in David Sherlock, Suffolk Church Chests. (Ipswich, 2008), p73, and the chest at St Botolph's Church, Bampton (Northampton), cited in Jane Geddes, Medieval decorative ironwork in England (London. c1999). Dating ranges from c1300-1400

See:
Monique Blanc, Retables (Paris: Union centrale des arts décoratifs – Réunion des musées nationalaux, 1998), Avant-Propos
Paul Williamson, Netherlandish Sculpture 1450-1550 (London: V&A Publications, 2002), pp.26-8


Other chests of this basic type tend to show a single carrying ring on a chain at both ends through which a lengthwise carrying pole is led, or 2 rings at each end, through which sideways poles are led.

733-1895