Graduate Thesis Or Dissertation
 

Medieval domestic furniture of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in England, France, and the Low Countries as portrayed in selected manuscript illuminations

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  • The purpose of the study was to determine the nature and extent of furniture in use in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in England, France, and the Low Countries (Holland, Belgium, and Northwest France) as portrayed in illuminated manuscripts of that period. Reproduced copies of illuminated manuscripts and books containing such illustrations were searched for examples of furniture of the period. Thirty-five millimeter pictures of these illustrations were taken, and prints were made. Pertinent information as to immediate source, original source, provenence, and date were recorded on the reverse side. This information was studied and compared with surviving examples of the furniture. The study was limited to the following classifications of furniture: furniture to sit or lie on, including stools, benches and settles, chairs, beds, and cradles, and furniture to put things on, including shelves and tables. The following items of furniture which were observed apparently have not survived: the three-legged turned stool and the multi-legged stool, the basket-work and ladder-back chairs, and the trestle table and the square table with apron and legs of the same width. There are indications that similar types of furniture were used both in France and the Low Countries. In some cases there were too few examples from a given country or period to draw a more explicit conclusion. The possibility of a progression in the use of stools in the Low Countries was observed. Evidence of humble furniture was found in the basket-work chair, barrel chair, turned chair, and spindle bed. The scene of the Holy Family at Supper from the Hours of Catherine of Cleves is an example of humble furniture of the period. Observations strongly suggest that metal may have been used in furniture construction and decoration during the period studied. Refinements in panel construction of furniture were noted. The extensive use of tracery, buttresses, crockets, arches, and spirelets, was evidence of a relationship between architectural details and furniture design.
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