{"meta":{"version":"2.1","_links":{"self":{"href":"https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/object/O109532"},"collection_page":{"href":"https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O109532/"}},"images":{"_primary_thumbnail":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2015HP6317/full/!100,100/0/default.jpg","_iiif_image":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2015HP6317/","_alt_iiif_image":[],"imageResolution":"high","_images_meta":[{"assetRef":"2015HP6317","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2015HN5643","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2014HD0871","copyright":"©Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2015HN5637","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2015HN5638","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2015HN5639","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2015HN5640","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2015HN5641","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2015HN5642","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2017JV4472","copyright":"©Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false}]},"see_also":{"_iiif_pres":"https://iiif.vam.ac.uk/collections/O109532/manifest.json","_alt_iiif_pres":[]}},"record":{"systemNumber":"O109532","accessionNumber":"602-1895","objectType":"Cabinet","titles":[],"summaryDescription":"","physicalDescription":"Cabinet of oak, consisting of a cupboard supported on four legs. There are two doors in front carved with Gothic tracery, and between them is a panel with St. Michael slaying the Dragon beneath a canopy. The sides of the cupboard are each fitted with two panels carved with Gothic tracery below the sides and between the legs are two long panels also carved with Gothic tracery. The framework of the front and sides of the cupboard were originally decorated with applied mouldings and buttress-shaped ornaments. On one of the doors are two long iron hinge-bands pierced with Gothic tracery.","artistMakerPerson":[{"name":{"text":"Unknown","id":"A1848"},"association":{"text":"","id":""},"note":""}],"artistMakerOrganisations":[],"artistMakerPeople":[],"materials":[{"text":"oak","id":"AAT12264"}],"techniques":[{"text":"carving","id":"AAT53149"}],"materialsAndTechniques":"oak, carving  ","categories":[{"text":"Furniture","id":"THES48948"},{"text":"Renaissance (French)","id":"THES267855"}],"styles":[],"collectionCode":{"text":"FWK","id":"THES48597"},"images":["2015HP6317","2015HN5643","2014HD0871","2015HN5637","2015HN5638","2015HN5639","2015HN5640","2015HN5641","2015HN5642","2017JV4472"],"imageResolution":"high","galleryLocations":[{"current":{"text":"001","id":"THES342814"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""}],"partTypes":[[{"text":"Cabinet","id":""}]],"contentWarnings":[{"apprise":"","note":""}],"placesOfOrigin":[{"place":{"text":"France","id":"x28849"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":""}],"productionDates":[{"date":{"text":"late 15th century","earliest":"1450-01-01","latest":"1499-12-31"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":""}],"associatedObjects":[],"creditLine":"","dimensions":[{"dimension":"Height","value":"109","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""},{"dimension":"Width","value":"102","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""},{"dimension":"Depth","value":"47","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""},{"dimension":"Weight","value":"49","unit":"kg","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":"Weighed with pallet"}],"dimensionsNote":"","marksAndInscriptions":[],"objectHistory":"Acquired from Emile Peyre of 146 Avenue Malakoff, Paris, at the price of £80\nCondition 'much wormeaten and damaged and many portions missing'.\r\n\r\nListed in Peyre's house as no. 64 'Gothic cupboard with St. <strike>George</strike> Michael between the doors' 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).\r\n\nLocated in the room marked G 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).\r\n","historicalContext":"Comparable objects\r\nSotheby's (London Olympia, 18/11/2003), lot 414 A rare French walnut buffet, c1500 with high panelled back... illustrated Victor Chinnery, Oak Furniture (1979), p.34 fig. 3:330","briefDescription":"Oak cabinet, France, late 15th century","bibliographicReferences":[{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Fred Roe, ‘Ancient Coffers and Cupbords’ (1902), p 71, pl XXXI\n'The Victoria and Albert Museum possesses one or two excellent examples, quite apart from the gigantic Peyre Collection. Among the oak treasures at South Kensington is a cabinet of Flamboyant work, which exhibits several rare and valuable features. In the centre is a figure of St. George in Gothic armour, above which are the remains of a rich canopy of pierced work. This piece has evidently been a chef d’oeuvre, and has the maker’s mark on the inner side of both doors.' [Roe illustrates one set of marks, which appear - with variations in the measurements - on both doors, and on the proper left rear panel. Each consists of two lines of different lengths crossing at right angles, with a hemi-sphere at both ends of one line; they may also be trial setting out marks for the tracery.]"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Victoria & Albert Museum: Fifty Masterpieces of Woodwork (London, 1955), no. 9.\n\r\nA Gothic Dresser  \nThat the dresser was a piece of furniture in general use throughout the Middle Ages in France and England is shown by the frequency with which a ‘draysorium’ or ‘dressoir' is mentioned in early inventories. Originally merely 11 table set on trestles—‘Unam mensam cum trecellis vocatam drechoir’ is the description in the Arras inventory of 1321—¬its purpose was to provide a place for the dressing of meat before it was served.  With the growth of the distinction between the kitchen and dining-hall in the later medieval period the function of the dresser changed. Although the meat, already dressed was still served from it, the dresser tended to become more and more an ornate piece of furniture to be used for the display of fine plate and other treasures, ‘couvert de noble vaisselle et de grandes richesses' as Froissart describes the royal dresser at the marriage of Richard ll to Isabella of France in 1396. In some cases it was even deemed necessary to take precautionary measures against theft or damage, and instances are recorded as early as the fourteenth century of dressers being fenced round with a barrier to prevent the too near approach of acquisitive guests.  \n\r\nFrom among the furnishings of French medieval halls only a few dressers have survived, and seldom if ever in their original state. It is natural that this beautiful little specimen should have been repaired, for the fragile tracery and carved ornament has inevitably suffered damage since it was made towards the end of the fifteenth century. The last phase of the French Gothic style is seen in the delicate arcading and tracery so freely lavished on the panels and cupboard doors, while the sadly mutilated figure in the centre represents St. Michael appropriately ‘carving’ the dragon.  The dresser was purchased from the famous Peyre Collection in 1895.  \n\r\n<i>French; late fifteenth century.  </i>\r\nH. 42 ½ in., L. 38 ¾ in., W. 18 ¼ in        \r\n"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Murray Adams-Acton, Domestic Architecture & Old Furniture (1929), pp.25-6, fig.43\n\r\nThe study of the French “credence” is particularly interesting, as it was an article of greater importance than any other piece of French furniture. Fine specimens are of considerable value, very few remain in a good state of preservation, and I believe  gthatthe Louvre and Cluny in Paris are (in 1928) without a single example which retains its original hanging drawers, or one where the legs at some time have not  been amputated. I have come across quite a number which have been turned with  their faces to the wall and the backs reconstructed as cupboards!  \r\nIn the fifteenth century the space between the back legs of a credence was open and rarely filled with panels, the panelled back occurs only in later examples. When   a piece has been “made up” the faker frequently uses the front of an old chest for a back board, as it is of convenient size, but this can be detected as the sections of  the panel mouldings differ from those of the upper structure. \r\nNo credence better illustrates the perfection attained by the Gothic carver than the example in South Kensington Museum (Fig. 43). It is unusually small, dry in colour and, like most fifteenth-century furniture, has suffered considerable mutilation.\r\nThe extant portions, however, show exceptionally fine workmanship which Gothic ecclesiastical influence has made the more fascinating.  \r\nFor the guidance of those who might find it difficult to visualise the nature of its design in its pristine condition, I have endeavoured to indicate in pencil the missing parts, and it will be seen that the design is infinitely finer with the addition of the  hanging drawers at present absent, and the continuation of the carved angle-posts at each side. Only two of the original hinges remain and both lock-plates are missing. \r\nPerhaps the beautiful ironwork of this period attracts one as much as its exquisite lace-like tracery, etc. Strap hinges and lock-plates of this type were usually composed of three thicknesses of metal, which were pierced and then placed upon a background of red velvet. Sections were very interesting at this time. Nothing attracts the  designer of furniture more than a beautiful section cut with precision to give depth of shadow and beauty of line. \r\nThis example must have been commissioned by a person of importance, for it well  represents the average type of work executed for the upper classes, who, by lavish  expenditure of money, stimulated the domestic arts and made such costly productions possible. In a visit to Cluny in Paris--that unique museum--some idea can be formed of the perfection attained in most things appertaining to the developed fifteenth-century mansion.          \r\n"}],"production":"","productionType":{"text":"","id":""},"contentDescription":"","contentPlaces":[],"associatedPlaces":[],"contentPerson":[],"associatedPerson":[],"contentOrganisations":[],"associatedOrganisations":[],"contentPeople":[],"associatedPeople":[],"contentEvents":[],"associatedEvents":[],"contentOthers":[],"contentConcepts":[],"contentLiteraryRefs":[],"galleryLabels":[{"text":"CUPBOARD.\r\nNORTHERN FRENCH; late 15th century.\r\nCarved Oak.\r\n602-1895\r\n\r\nBetween the two doors carved with gothic tracery is a panel with St. Michael slaying the Dragon. The six side panels are nineteenth-century replacements. As with so much Gothic woodwork, this piece has been repaired and altered. Originally there may also have been a pair of doors in the lower stage. A shelf was set some six inches below the present lower rail of the cupboard.","date":{"text":"Pre-2006","earliest":"2006-01-01","latest":"2006-12-31"}}],"partNumbers":["602-1895"],"accessionNumberNum":"602","accessionNumberPrefix":"","accessionYear":1895,"otherNumbers":[],"copyNumber":"","aspects":["WHOLE"],"assets":["2019LU4011"],"recordModificationDate":"2026-02-20","recordCreationDate":"2005-02-23","availableToBook":true}}