| Categories | |
| Object type | |
| Materials and techniques | Carved and joined oak |
| Brief description | Chest, oak, English or Flemish, c1400; with two knights jousting or tilting |
| Physical description | Small chest of oak, carved in front with two knights tilting (jousting). The wrought iron staple and hinges are of a later date. No doubt the chest was once brightly painted, like so much Gothic furniture. Scenes of tilting seem to have been a favourtire subject for the decoration of chests in Northern France and in England at this period; a number of specimens survive. |
| Dimensions | - Height: 43.8cm
- Width: 97.8cm
- Depth: 38.7cm
Taken from dept file: 43.8H 1ft 5.25 in x W 3ft 2.5in D 1ft 3.25in |
| Gallery label | SMALL CHEST
Carved oak
FRENCH or ENGLISH; 1300-1400
738-1895
The stable and hinges are of a later date. The chest was probably once brightly painted, like so much Gothic furniture. Scenes of tilting seem to have been a favourite subject for the decoration of chests in Northern France and England at this period; a number of specimens survive.
(Dated as a label from 1967 in dept file)(Pre-2006) |
| Object history | Acquired from Emile Peyre of 146 Avenue Malakoff, Paris, at the price of £25; attributed as 'English or French, 14th century'
Condition ' wormeaten and much chipped'
Listed in Peyre's house as no. 172 'XIVth. centy. wooden box with 2 knights tilting' in a typed version of 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.' The inventory is numbered 1-329, with description and price, arranged by room; it was drawn up in early March 1895 by Thomas Armstrong (Director for Art 1881-98) and Caspar Purdon Clarke (Assistant Director and from 1896 Director of the Art Museum, later Director of the Metropolitan Museum, New York).
Located in 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).
Though acquired as 'English or French', 20th commentators tended to consider an English origin more likely. The most recent discussion of a group of similar chests including 738-1895, and consideration of an origin in England or Flanders is found in BOS, Agnes: Mobilier du Moyen Age et de la Renaissance; La collection du musee du Louvre, 2019, no.83 pp. 358-9
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| Historical context | Comparable chests
See Roe (who suggests an English origin) for a discussion of various 'tilting coffers' at Harty (Kent), Southwold (Suffolk), York Minster, Ypres (Belgium), museé de Cluny (museé national du Moyen Age, Paris, inv. CL 8919).
Chest front (framed as a panel) with St George, the dragon and knights in armour 63 x 117cm, said to have come from Kings College Chapel, Cambridge (Christie's South Kensington 4/11/2008 lot 440)
Chest front with St George and the Dragon, Louvre OA10600; see BOS, Agnes: Mobilier du Moyen Age et de la Renaissance; La collection du musee du Louvre, 2019, no.83 pp. 358-9 |
| Bibliographic references | - Victoria & Albert Museum: Fifty Masterpieces of Woodwork (London, 1955), no. 2.
A Carved Oak Coffer
Chests and coffers served a variety of purposes in the religious and secular life of the Middle Ages and survive in larger numbers than any other type of medieval Furniture. They were constructed of massive boards pegged together until towards the end of the fifteenth century, when framed panelling representing a revolution in construction was introduced. The finest medieval examples were lavishly enriched with carved and painted decoration, favourite motives being arcades of tracery or, more rarely, scriptural incidents, jousts and deeds of arms.
In this small coffer, which dates from about 1400, the front is carved with a spirited representation of two knights jousting in a landscape with conventional trees at either end recalling those in Giottoesque landscapes. They wear helmets and their legs are protected by long tilting saddles, incised with their armorial bearings, which are also displayed on their surcoats and shields. The horses are unprotected except for chamfrons on their heads. In style and composition this panel closely resembles a well-known 'tilting coffer’ in Harty Church, Isle of Sheppey, but in that instance the knights are attended by squires, and the front is flanked by stiles carved with figures under Gothic canopies.
This coffer formed part of the Peyre Collection, and a contemporary French lock-plate has been let into the shaped matrix of the original lock. M. Peyre is known to have obtained some of his works of art in England, and the broad and summary treatment of these jousting knights suggests the possibility that the coffer is of English origin. It was purchased by the Museum in 1895.
English or French; about 1400.
H. 17 ¼ in., L. 38 ½ in., W. 15 ¼
- Eames, P., Furniture History, 1977, cat 31, p 145-148.
- Roe, F., Ancient Coffers and Cupboards, 1902, Chapter V, Pl. XXVIII, p.56 f, ill. p. 61.
The tilting coffret in the South Kensington Museum, which is described as being of French nationality, is in more than one sense a debatable specimen (see note 16). It belonged to the Peyre Collection, but all records of its acquirement by that antiquary are now lost. M. Peyre’s extensive researches in England render it not at all improbable that the coffret may have been found in this country, and, indeed, he himself admitted that he believed some of his early specimens to be English. The roughness of its execution certainly gives this impression. The treatment of the trees which appear at each end of the panel is remarkably like any one of the three examples previously mentioned, but in the action of the charging horses the coffret bears a resemblance to the Bayeux tapestry which is striking and distinctly singular. Both the knights wear the heaume, and their legs are protected by tilting saddles of great length, upon which are displayed their armorial bearings, which appear also on their surcoats. The horses on this and the Harty coffer are armed with chamfrons, which do not appear in the two earlier specimens.
Note 16: No. 733, Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington, an oak coffer bound with iron scroll-work, and having its base shaped in the form of an Early English flat-topped door-head. The ironwork in its character greatly resembles the Norman door-hinges formerly a feature at St. Albans Abbey Church. This piece was included in a collection of mediaeval oak originally formed by M. Peyre, a well-known French collector. The South Kensington Museum authorities endeavoured many years back to purchase this collection, but without success. It was, however, finally acquired in I895, and since then has been partly distributed in various parts of the kingdom. It is not at all improbable that this and other debatable specimens belonging to the collection are actually of English origin, as M. Peyre is known to have followed his pursuit in England for some time, though no evidence of his purchases is believed to exist.
- Eric Mercer, The Social History of the Decorative Arts, 700-1700 (London: Ebenezer Baylis, 1969), pl 91, p 86.
‘…ornament was more and more produced by working upon the wood itself. Many early wooden pieces had their decoration carried out in paint, as for example, the cupboard in Halberstadt Cathedral, or relied upon the patterns formed by the iron bands which encompassed them. Many of the most highly ornamented early pieces were not chests but caskets, and even when these were of wood their enrichments were often in another material. From the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries however there survive many chests, of French, German, English, Spanish and Low Country origin, lavishly carved with a variety of motifs and subjects, and in many styles [Plates 90, 91, 92 and 93]. Similarly, fold-stools, whose wooden framework had often been covered with precious or semi-precious metals or stones, were superseded by chairs of estate, equally magnificent, but relying for their ornament upon the elaborate carving of the timber [Plates 94 and 97].'
- WINDISCH-GRAETZ, Franz: Möbel Europa. 1. Romantic-Gotik. (Munich, 1982), fig. 114
- Clare Graham, Chest and Coffer, in Traditional Interior Decoration vol. 2 no. 1 (Summer 1987), pp.130-8
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