Panel carved with a man beating a thief

Arched panel set within an arched and moulded frame with carved upper spandrels, showing two figures standing on uneven ground - a taller man brandishing a stick in the act of grasping a shorter youth, from whose outer garment two plates are falling. Above both figures floats a blank banderole or ribbon-like banner. Although the panel appears to be a door there is no obvious evidence of hingeing on the reverse of the panel.

The framework consists of 4 elements joined with double-tongued mortice and tenon joints, double-pegged (diameter10mm), with a coped mitre at the top corners. The panel is formed of eight (glued) vertical planks, and it appears that the planks are extended into two tenons (about 7cm high) top and bottom. The arched panel with high-relief carving (all apparently integral, not built up) sits within grooves worked in these stiles and rails. Holes have been cut into both stiles at mid-height and there are remains of iron nails in or close to these areas. A series of holes in the bottom rail may have been used to peg the panel into the frame. The right stile has clinched nails at top and bottom. No evidence for a painted finish has been found.

Various scarfed-in repairs: bottom left corner of frame; bottom left corner of panel at moulded edge; left middle edge (possibly cut away for a lock); large area between the legs of the man and the youth; small area near right toe of the man. The inner edge double-cavetto moulding at the right side (all of it) and a lower section and a mid section on the left side are replacements. Replacement areas of carving: the knobbed stick (except for the small area behind the man's hand), the sword blade visible between legs.

Acquired from Emile Peyre of 146 Avenue Malakoff, Paris, at the price of £250, 'wormeaten, portions missing, it has been restored'.

This panel was formerly in the collection of Emile Peyre (1824-1904), a notable Parisian collector of French medieval and renaissance artefacts. In 1895 the South Kensington Museum (renamed the V&A in 1900), bought over 300 pieces of furniture and woodwork from him, (as well as sculpture and metalwork), at a cost of £11,878. 16s. 9d.

In the V&A Peyre papers, this door is listed in J. Hungerford Pollen's Report on Monsieur E. Peyre's Collection of Wood Carving etc. February 1889, as no. (18) from the N. or NE of France - a door and frame complete. The frame carved rudely out of 3 pieces. The door itself has, in massive relief, a master beating his son or servant. The figures are life size. Late XVth century [with sketch].'

Listed in Peyre's house as no. 1 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 G (being the largest room at the front of the house overlooking the street) 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).

Decorative ornament:
The arch is supported by a type of capital consisting of (from the bottom) guilloche, leaf ornament, acanthus leaf, fluting.
The sequence of ornament on the panel (from the inside out) consists of twisted buds ?, laurel tip, bowtel, guilloche, a form of double bead and reel, torus. The mitred spandrels are filled with scrolling leaf ornament.

Dress
Older man: cap with a braid threaded through the fabric and a round cap badge, short gown (worn over a smock), mail breastplate?, with baldric and belt, embroidered (?) purse, hose and square-toed shoes (found in illustrations of costume from c1490)

Shorter youth: hood tied up on his head, short gown worn over a smock, belt and leather? purse, hose and leather boots. The youth appears to be wearing a sword (though this might be a staff hung from his belt), which would normally be the prerogative of nobility in France. However, since the sword is defined by the long blade carved on a section of replacement woodwork which ends abruptly at the junction with a surviving original plank, the long blade seems to be an invented detail, and the youth was originally depicted wearing a short knife.

The dress worn is distinctive to the first half of the 16th century in northern europe, with most elements found in other illustrations of the period and consistent with at 1520-30 dating. Purses would have been used for a variety of objects, coins, keys etc.

At first sight it has always been assumed that this object was a door and published as such (Havard), and there is evidence that handle fittings of some kind may have been fitted before it came to the Museum. However, structurally there is no evidence of hingeing on the panel or frame, and it is clearly a large panel held within a framework. One hypothesis therefore is that this was a boiserie or blind panel (perhaps intended to look like a door, but which did not open), fitted behind a rebate (note the plain exterior edges of the frame) in a larger wall of stone. Weathering suggests that the door has been outdoors for some of its life, partly protected from above.

The design, with life-size figures appears to show a steward in the act of apprehending a thieving guest/servant/vagabond, presumably an admonishment to visitors. At Chemazé, France (near Angers) an exterior carved and painted door of uncertain date shows the same design in a large upper panel (Marcus Binney, The Chateaux of France, pp.78-9), which must either derive from the same source, or perhaps be a copy of the V&A panel. It has been suggested that the Chemazé (formerly occupied by a prior) door was erected by the new owner to dissuade pilgrims from seeking hospitality en route to Mont Saint-Michel. The scallop shell encircled by a cord worn by the man may be an heraldic insignia, rather than the badge worn by a pilgrim. The panel may have been painted originally, with an inscription on the banderole making its meaning explicit.

Origin
By comparison with known woodwork such as the panels in the church of Saint-Antoine de Compiègne, panels in the musee Vivenel (illust. in Laurence Fligny, 132a-d, 137 a,b) and 'Le Triomphe de Diane' from Rouen (now musee nationale de la Renaissance au chateau d'Ecouen), in particular the use of banderoles, the panel can be dated to about 1520-30, and seems likely to have come from northern Ile-de-France or south Picardie. Analysis of the costume supports this hypothesis.

Cf also the early 16th century panels from no. 74 Rue Ganterie, Rouen (associated with the Val de Manneville family, presumed to have been carved in Rouen) offered for auction at Rouen (18/4/1902) by the Commissaires-Priseurs de Rouen (copy of the Sale catalogue on dept file for 468-1895).

Northern or NE France, possibly Rouen

This very large panel with life-size figures appears to show a steward in the act of apprehending a thieving guest or servant, from whose jerkin stolen plates are falling. The original location of the panel is not known, but weathering towards the bottom of the panel suggests that it was fixed on the outside of a building, perhaps blocking a doorway at a great house or religious building. It may have served as an admonishment to visitors, and an inscription to this effect may once have been painted on the banderole or ribbon banner above. The renaissance ornament around the arch and the dress worn by the figures help in dating the panel to the first half of the sixteenth century.

468-1895