{"meta":{"version":"2.1","_links":{"self":{"href":"https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/object/O167701"},"collection_page":{"href":"https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O167701/"}},"images":{"_primary_thumbnail":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2017JR9379/full/!100,100/0/default.jpg","_iiif_image":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2017JR9379/","_alt_iiif_image":[],"imageResolution":"high","_images_meta":[{"assetRef":"2017JR9379","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2013GL5125","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2017KE2159","copyright":"©Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false}]},"see_also":{"_iiif_pres":"https://iiif.vam.ac.uk/collections/O167701/manifest.json","_alt_iiif_pres":[]}},"record":{"systemNumber":"O167701","accessionNumber":"W.57-1913","objectType":"Door","titles":[],"summaryDescription":"","physicalDescription":"Oak door carved with four linenfold panels within moulded framework.","artistMakerPerson":[{"name":{"text":"Unknown","id":"A1848"},"association":{"text":"","id":""},"note":""}],"artistMakerOrganisations":[],"artistMakerPeople":[],"materials":[{"text":"oak","id":"AAT12264"}],"techniques":[{"text":"carving","id":"AAT53149"}],"materialsAndTechniques":"","categories":[{"text":"Woodwork","id":"THES48877"},{"text":"Architectural fittings","id":"THES48994"}],"styles":[],"collectionCode":{"text":"FWK","id":"THES48597"},"images":["2017JR9379","2013GL5125","2017KE2159"],"imageResolution":"high","galleryLocations":[{"current":{"text":"001","id":"THES397601"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""}],"partTypes":[[{"text":"doors","id":"AAT2803"}]],"contentWarnings":[{"apprise":"","note":""}],"placesOfOrigin":[{"place":{"text":"Suffolk","id":"x29440"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":""}],"productionDates":[{"date":{"text":"1500-1525","earliest":"1500-01-01","latest":"1525-12-31"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":""}],"associatedObjects":[],"creditLine":"","dimensions":[{"dimension":"Height","value":"175.3","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":"measurement converted from department file"},{"dimension":"Width","value":"73.7","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":"measurement converted from department file"}],"dimensionsNote":"","marksAndInscriptions":[],"objectHistory":"Bought for £18 from Albert Cubitt, 159-161 Princes Street, Ipswich (RF 13/3659M)\r\n\r\n15 June 1913 letter Col. Croft to Harcourt-Smith draws attention to oak doors and panelling for sale by Albert Cubitt, Ipswich.  He notes the doors are in good condition but have several coats of paint on them.  He has been told that the doors came from some old cottages at Lavenham.\r\n\r\n14 July 1913 Minute paper\r\nupon receipt of photographs from Cubitt, Lehfeldt writes that the doors \"seem interesting\".  The Dept. has 368-05 but these doors present variations in design (one slightly arched) and despite the lack of available funds, he supports having them sent for approval.\r\n\r\n15 July 1913 Minute paper of DFM\r\nsupports acquiring the door marked \"A\" and notes that the other doors are so similar in style to the doors declined on score of price by the Museum last year and afterwards purchased by the Ipswich Museum that they must have come from the same house.\r\n\r\n(CM note - the door selected in the end is \"B\" - one of the others, similar to those in the Ipswich Museum).\r\n\r\n23 July 1913 Purchase Form\r\ncondition of 3 old oak linen-fold panel doors is noted as \"damaged, portions missing\".\r\n\r\n30 July 1913 Minute Paper\r\nO Brackett supports purchase of the door marked \"B\" on the photos.  \"An ornate example of this type of work and finer than anything of the kind in the Museum\".  The door \"B\" is purchased for £18; the others are returned.","historicalContext":"","briefDescription":"Linenfold door, English, 1500-1525, oak. From Havingham Suffolk.","bibliographicReferences":[{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Charles Tracy, English Medieval Furniture and Woodwork (London, 1988), cat. no. 252.\n\r\n'DOOR, composed of four panels of linenfold ornament, in a moulded framework (PL.83).\r\nFrom Lavenham, Suffolk\r\nOak. Early 16th century\r\n175 x 67.5 cm\r\nMus. No. W.57-1913\r\nIt has been suggested that the ‘linenfold’ device may have been copied from the curling of parchment, which was sometimes glued to the backs of painted panels to stiffen them and to help prevent them from cracking. Parchment would not stick easily to an oak panel and might tend to curl up at the edges. Cescinsky suggested that the use of the vertical ridge, which is such a prominent feature of the ‘linenfold’ design, may have originated in the chamfering on the backs of early panels, each plane tending to meet in a low ridge in the middle (H. Cescinsky and E.R. Gribble, Early English Furniture and Woodwork, 2 vols, London, 1922, I, p.245). The simple chamfered ornament (FIG.51) was very commonly employed. These hypotheses seem unnecessarily far-fetched when the practice of breaking up the surface of a door With vertical mouldings, using lamination or clinker-boarding, and battening techniques, had already been used for a very long time. They also have a familiar utilitarian ring to them. Nor was the development of this kind of decoration dependant upon the use of true panel and frame construction. Indeed the stubborn survival of the idea of using textiles, in the form of wicker-work or drapery, as room partitions was first discussed by Gottfried Semper (see Michael Podro, The Critical Historians of Art, New Haven and London,1982, 46-47 &amp; Chapter IV, n.7). Textiles, used so much in the Middle Ages as interior furnishings of one kind or another, are more likely to have provided the inspiration for linenfold ornament (P. Eames, Furniture in England, France and the Netherlands from the Twelfth to the Fifteenth Century, London, 1977.p. 274-76). \r\nA somewhat tentative form of linenfold decoration can be seen in the fifteenth-century lap-jointed wainscotting in such places as the porch of the Guildhall at Lavenham. This is effectively unframed and secured to the Wall with nails. Cescinsky insisted that where vertical mouldings are flat, and the decoration is confined to the ends of the panels, it is incorrect to talk of ‘linenfold’. The museum's door, on the other hand, he classifies as true linenfold since the mouldings represent rolled-up linen. Sometimes the rods around which the fabric was rolled are also incorporated in the design. The ribbing was produced by means of specially-made moulding planes and the decorative carving at top and bottom Was done by hand.The earliest datable example of true linenfold in England, so far identified are the doors of the Audley Chapel at Hereford Cathedral (P. Eames, Furniture in England, France and the Netherlands from the Twelfth to the Fifteenth Century, London, 1977, p. 275).referred to in the accounts of 1492 as lignurn undulatum. It is unlikely that the motif appeared in England much later than on the Continent, although all the surviving examples here must be of the sixteenth century The plastic treatment of the linenfold ‘hems’ on this door approach the character of late Gothic ‘banderole’ on the Continent'.\r\n"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":" H. Clifford Smith, Catalogue of English Furniture & Woodwork. Vol. I – Gothic and Early Tudor (London,1929), No. 222, p.55, Plate 30.\r\n“222. DOOR, composed of four panels of linenfold ornament, in a moulded framework. From Lavenham, Suffolk. Early 16th century. H. 5ft. 9 in. W. 2ft. 5 ¼ in. Plate 30. W. 57-1913”"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"John Gloag, <i>The English Tradition in Design</i> (London: King Penguin, 1947), fig. 2"}],"production":"","productionType":{"text":"","id":""},"contentDescription":"","contentPlaces":[],"associatedPlaces":[],"contentPerson":[],"associatedPerson":[],"contentOrganisations":[],"associatedOrganisations":[],"contentPeople":[],"associatedPeople":[],"contentEvents":[],"associatedEvents":[],"contentOthers":[],"contentConcepts":[],"contentLiteraryRefs":[],"galleryLabels":[],"partNumbers":["W.57-1913"],"accessionNumberNum":"57","accessionNumberPrefix":"W","accessionYear":1913,"otherNumbers":[],"copyNumber":"","aspects":["WHOLE"],"assets":["2019LU8272"],"recordModificationDate":"2026-07-08","recordCreationDate":"2008-09-25","availableToBook":true}}