Some more engravings of late medieval Tiroler furniture

In this post I would like to show some more furniture pieces from the plates in the books 'Die Zimmergotik in Deutsch Tirol' by Franz Paukert. As previously mentioned, due to my scanner size limit each plate consists of two scans that are 'glued' together.

The bench (with turnable backrest) and the chest, two works of Tyrolean joinery that are already being sought out of the country, are shown with the use of  dimensional sketches and photographs made available to the publisher by Mr. Ueberbacher from Bolzano, Italy.

 

Canopy bed from the Castello Principesco, or Landfurstliche Burg, Merano, Italy.

These two folding chairs are in the Figdor collection in Vienna. One of them (Figure A), coming from Bozen, shows the old, quilted leather seat belt and its shape is reminiscent of the faldistorium of the women's monastery on the Nonnberg near Salzburg. The armchair of Figure B, like the previous one, has crossed legs but with partially suspected monkey- and crab-like knobs and comes from St. Michael in Eppau. (The Figdor collection was auctioned in the early 20th century; the auction catalogues can still be found in second hand book stores)

 

On the other hand, the design of this cabinet does not differ insignificantly from the usual furniture shapes. The straight end of the upper frieze, the framing of the door wing and the somewhat clumsy ornamentation characterize the piece as a late form of medieval art. 

 

Cabinet in the possession of  Mr. J. Strasser in Merano. In terms of its origin, this piece of furniture is one of the few surviving pieces of its kind. A real Tyrolean work and despite its relatively later origins unaffected by the imitation of architectural details that are so popular elsewhere, it is evidence of the fact that the Tyrolean carpentry did not tend to indulge in miniature replicas of the facade construction, but rather focused on healthy construction, and flat cuts, engraving, tracery carved into the wooden base and moderate painting are the only means to which this cabinet owes its very handsome appearance. The upper and lower parts of the cabinet are firmly connected, and the sides are completely smooth. Metal bars never seem to have been there at the door. Merano, Italy.

 

Noteworthy is the simplest possible treatment of the tracery fillings in the wash basin: flat cuts with a coloured background, as well as the extremely simple construction of the box, which is common to almost all of this type of Tyrolean Gothic furniture; Jointed boxes with decorative strips placed in front of them on jointed feet and finally the almost continuous painting of the ornaments or at least the flat base of the carved parts. Castello Principesco, or Landfurstliche Burg, Merano, Italy. 

 

A chest owned by the bookstore owner F. Plant in Merano. In spite of its extremely simple structure and in spite of its decoration reminiscent of the Romanesque period, it was found to be of a rather late origin and proof that the Tyrolean gothic art did not reluctantly fall back on very early roots. The lid of the cest is not connected to the other part of the chest by iron hinges, but by wooden pegs which function as axes of rotation, and go through the lateral gripping strips and the sides of the chest.

Among the increase in the number of furniture pieces of the Landfurstliche Burg in Merano over the last few years, the furniture shown in whole or in part on the plates above and below is the most important. The legs of the chests belong to the box, which differs little from the already known pieces of a similar kind and only in the ornaments and the exposition of the fields on the front.

 

Thomasteppich: the first panel finished!

Last weekend we were at the historic open air museum in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. While the men of the St.Thomasguild did all the hard work, the ladies were very busy embroidering. But with results! The first panel of the tapestry was finished; and the second one is nearly finished as well!

It was indeed hard labour for the men of the St. Thomasguild ...

  The first panel finished. Details and faces that were also on the original tapestry, but have disappeared (or better faded) through time.

Katinka's panel is also nearing completion. At the end of the day she only needed to do a small piece of green and the details of the faces.

With the first panel finished Anne moved the canvas roll to the next the next scene of the Thomasteppich: St. Thomas spending the money for the King's palace to the poor and his imprisonment. But there was a surprise! We we unrolled the canvas it became apparent that some years ago Anne already had outlined some of the scenes and windows with black wool. The new canvas panel was fastened again with extra thick thread (as shown in a previous post in July 2013) at the short sides first, followed by the long sides. The tensioning is necessary, as embroidery will cause the canvas to "shrink". When we measured both the embroidered panel and the unembroidered canvas, a difference of 1 cm had occurred. This difference would have been much larger without tensioning of the canvas.

  

The next scene is unfurled ... with already some embroidery on it!

First the short sides of the frame are attached to the frame, followed by the long side. Note that the thread is first attached in the middle of the frame.

The second panel at the end of the weekend. One the left side, a horse of the first panel is watching the new scene. You can also see the difference in height of the embroidered and unembroidered piece.

'Do you think we get some apples at the end of the day?' 'No, Thomas will surely give them to the poor - as always'

'Sire, I have seen Thomas cheating on you with your gold. You must take care of this untrustworthy unbeliever' "I will send my noble knight to seize him!

'Here rides the gallant knight on his noble quest, to imprison the vile stinkard Thomas.'

 

Progress on the Thomasteppich: August 2014 - April 2015

Anne embroidering in the great hall of castle Hernen. The beautiful sun rays were created by the smoke of coming from the fireplace in the next room which had a badly working chimney. Photo made by Geldersch Landschap en Kastelen.

Like the previous progress report on the Thomasteppich embroidery project, I have made a photo for most of the days from August 2014 to April 2015 when Anne did something with her part of the Thomasteppich, and turned these into another small video. During winter time not much was done on the teppich as we were working on our new house. However, the first panels of the tapestry are nearly finished, both that of Anne and Katinka.

Progress on the Thomasteppich: May-July 2014

Like the previous progress report on the Thomasteppich embroidery project, I have made a photo for most of the days from May till July 2014 when Anne did something with her part of the Thomasteppich, and turned these into another small video.

A change of colour

While working on the Thomas Tapestry replica, Anne and Katinka discovered that it was a bit odd that the clothing of the kings (and Christ) was of a very plain colour. You can imagine that Christ had a more sobre colour, but for mundaine kings this is hard to believe. The pale beige colour that we had chosen also was very similar to the natural colour wool. They started to think of changing the beige to a more purple one.

 The colours of the King is very plain on the old tapestry, in the new one the purple colour has been photoshopped.

We then looked at the other extant tapestries if such a purple colour had existed, and to our surprise it was the Thomasteppich where a 'lilac' colour was mentioned. In fact, it showed 'beige (lilac?)', in other words they suspected that the 'beige' colour had in fact been a lilac that has discoulored during the centuries. This made Anne and Katinka decide to change to purple. We were not sure which colour to choose from Renaissance Dyeing, so we ordered both the Purple (0203) and the Burgundy (0205). They have just arrived, and it looks like the Burgundy is more colour stable, so this will be the replacement for the beige.

Left the Burgudy, right the Purple, with the Beige and Natural colours in the middle.

Progress on the Thomasteppich: August 2013 - May 2014

 Anne and Katinka at work on the Thomasteppich in April 2014.

Like the previous progress report on the Thomasteppich embroidery project, I have made a photo for most of the days during August 2013 till May 2014 when Anne did something with her part of the Thomasteppich, and turned these into another small video.

Of course not only Anne worked on the tapestry. Also Katinka made an enormous progress...

 Left: Katinka's part of the tapestry in 2013, and right in April 2014.

Also interesting to see is the back of the tapestry. Only tiny stitches appear at the back of the frame, most of the wool is present at the front of the tapestry. The medieval klosterstitch used has two purposes: it saves weight and expensive wool.

 The front and back of the tapestry in August 2013.

Some wooden needle cases and other textile working tools

At our woodworking course we have a new electric lathe, and I wanted to try this machine to make some wooden needle cases. Such needle cases existed in bone and metal forms in medieval times, and likely as well in wood - but this is difficult to prove as the items are rather small and relatively fragile. The needle case consisted of a hollow wooden cover, in which a hollow wooden bobbin sits, in which needles can be stored. In fact, it is a complete sewing kit.

Some sewing stuff. Three wooden needle cases with bobbins: two made of walnut, one of cherry, as well as three loose wooden bobbins of cherry and beech.

Making the needle case was a wondrous experience. It went smooth and fast on the new machine. I used some walnut stock to make the basic wooden rod (around 25 mm) on the lathe. Then I divided the rod into four pieces: two cases and two bobbins. A relatively simple task to do. I hollowed the turned cases out using a drill press with a 15 mm forstner bit, but this could also have been done on the lathe. In fact, making the holes for the needles in the bobbin was done on the lathe with the bobbin fixed in the chuck and the drill in the dead centre of the tail stock.

Here the two parts of the needle case can be seen; The bobbin with the hole for the needles, and the wooden case for the bobbin. Ideally, a cord can be attached the the bobbin and the case, so the complete set can be attached to a belt.

The two walnut needle cases closed. The top one is finished with beeswax, bottom one with linseed oil. 

Previously, I had made such a needle case from cherry wood on an old unstable lathe, and made the holes using a centre bit on a hand drilling machine. This was a far more tricky process with an only 50% success rate.

 The cherry needle box. A piece of wool is used to plug the needle hole of the bobbin.

Previously, I also made some more bobbins from beech and cherry.

  Three empty bobbins.

And two full ones.

And a wooden pin or stiletto of beech. The pin is used as a help for making eyelets. Pushing it through the fabric creates a hole for the eyelet by forcing the weave apart.

Some other textile working tools shown on the first photo are a pair of scissors (bought at Glimmingehus in Sweden) and a ring thimble. The thimble is a 14th century original, now put back into use.

The ring thimble has retained a nice patina.

Some purses from the St. Thomasguild Part II

This post continues with two more purses in use by us. Both purses are of the frame-purse type (as described by Olaf Goubitz in the book 'Purses in Pieces' (ISBN 9789089320148). This book gives an excellent presentation of all the purses and pouches in use in medieval times, with reconstructions based on actual (Dutch) finds. His focus is on leather purses, but the given purse types apply to fabric purses as well. Some of the intriguing purses in this book have two sacks instead of one. He divides the different purses into four kinds:

• Double ring purses, where both bags hang side by side.
• Secondary ring purses, where the second - smaller bag - hides within the larger bag.
• Hinged-ring purses, where the second 'half' ring swivels on the first ring. Depending on the place of the half ring (up or down), either the smaller bag or the larger is open.
• And finally double harp-framed purses, which are basically the same as the other double purses, but with their ring frames shaped like a D.

Drawing of a double ring purse from the Leather museum in Offenbach, Germany. 

Drawing from O. Goubitz Purses in Pieces.

Above. Drawing by O. Goubitz of a secondary ring purse. Right. Drawing by O. Goubitz of a leather find in Dordrecht, the Netherlands of a secondary ring purse. 

Drawing of a hinged type purse by O. Goubitz, showing that the small bag is open when the hinge is down, and the large bag is open when the hinge is up.

Left: A double ring frame for a purse from Italy, 1450. MAK, Koln, Germany. Right: A D-shaped hinged ring frame made from latten inlaid with niello. Late 15th century, British. Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK.

Two iron double ring frames with a suspension swivel. Amsterdam Historic Museum, Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The left purse frame measures 12 by 9 cm and has small holes in the ring to attach the bag part of the purse. The holes are such that the two rings support two bags hanging next to each other. The lobes of the right purse frame point such that the second bag hangs within the first. Images from O. Goubitz's book Purses in pieces.

A 16th century iron hinged-ring frame from the museum Booijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam, the Netherlands. It measures 17 x 13.5 x 1.5 cm. Image from the museum website, drawing from O. Goubitz.

Interestingly, Racaire (of the marvellous Racaire Embroidery and Needlework blog) has made photos of such a (very posh) double ring purse from south Germany of 1550 on display in the Hof Jagd und Rustkammer in Vienna, Austria. Only two images of this purse are shown below, the others you can see at her Flickr photo stream. 

The double purse from the Hof Jagd und Rustkammer, Vienna, Austria. 

The tassels of the drawstring are made up of three different colours. Photo copyright by Racaire.

Side view of the two ring frames with purses hanging from one purse bar. Photo copyright by Racaire.

I find these double purses fascinating, and it is no wonder that my daily purse in use as guild-master of the St. Thomasguild is such a double purse. We did use a brass purse bar with a single harp frame from Medieval Design (an Italian firm providing re-enactment stuff) and added an extra brass harp frame to it - luckily there was just enough space for it. The outer layer of the pouch is made from black velvet, the inside is of red silk. The silk drawstrings end with either two rubies or two gold beads. The front flap of the pouch is embroidered with the heraldic shield of our guild. The ends of the bags each have a double black tassel of 6 cm long. The sizes of each purse are: top width 12 cm, bottom width 29 cm, diagonal edge length 19 cm, flap length 10 cm.

My purse laid flat, showing both trapezium shaped bags.

Left: The gold and ruby beads at the end of the drawstring. Middle: The red silk inside of the pouch. Right: The heraldic shield of the St. Thomasguild with compass, plane and axe, together with the spear of St. Thomas.

The double purse with both bags standing side by side.

The second pouch is one that Anne uses for special occasions (feasts and castles). This pouch is a trapezium-shaped single harp-frames purse. Several of these ring/harp-framed purses have survived from medieval times, most of them are religious treasures now, such as the late 13th - early 14th century ring-framed purse from the Our Beloved Lady of Nativity (O.L. Vrouwe van de Geboorte) church in Tongeren, Belgium. This purse likely once belonged to John (Jan) II of Brabant and Limburg (or his wife), as his coat of arms and that of his wife Margaret (Marghareta) of England are embroidered on the purse, and bequeathed to the church after his/her death.

 

The front of the purse of Jan II van Brabant. The purse is quite large: 30 cm height by 43 cm width. 

Photo from the KIK-IRPA database, Belgium.

Left: Detail from the embroidered front of the Jan II van Brabant purse. It is made from wool fabric with embroidery in silk and gold thread (long stitch). Right: On the back, plain twill damask (China, end of 13th-early 14th century). Photo from the KIK-IRPA database, Belgium.

Two photos showing the ring of the purse of Jan II van Brabant as well as the holes for the drawstring. Photos from the KIK-IRPA database, Belgium.

Anne's pouch is made of ivory coloured silk with a woven flower pattern. The inside of the pouch is plain silk. The edges of the pouch are decorated with two rows of 8 pearls, with a 7 cm long gold thread tassel at each end. The green-ivory drawstring end with two gold beads. The purse measures 12 cm at the top and 27 cm at the bottom with a diagonal edge length of 17 cm. The length of the closing flap is 11 cm.

The front of Anne's pouch with the flap closed.

Here you can see the double gold beads at the end of the drawstring, and the pearls around the edge.

Left: The front of the pouch with the flap opened. Right: The back of the pouch. 

You can see that the purse hangs on the harp ring, not on the purse bar.