A rare mid-16th century joined and boarded oak linenfold-carved coffer, English, circa 1550


The lid with applied edge rails to simulate a single panel, the front with four linenfold panels, each vertically moulded to simulate pleats, the central 'drape' carved with a cross to each end and flanked by a ribbed rod, all within scratch-moulded rails, interior lidded till and indistinct handwritten paper label below lid, 153cm wide x 50.5cm deep x 67cm high, (60in wide x 19 1/2in deep x 26in high)
|Provenance: The Clive Sherwood CollectionSold Sotheby's, 'The Clive Sherwood Collection', Olympia, London, 22 May 2002, Lot 300Literature:This coffer is illustrated and discussed, 'Dendrochronology and the study of Furniture', Christopher Claxton Steven, Antique Collecting, June 1999, p. 6, fig.4For a discussion on the development of 'linenfold', see Victor Chinnery, Oak Furniture: The British Tradition (2016), pp. 378 - 381, where it is noted that earlier linenfold panelling tended to simulate curtains or hangings with folded top edges but straight bottoms, whereas later renderings were more stylised, when both edges of the panel were carved with folds. See also, Percy Macquoid, A History of English Furniture, The Age of Oak, (1925), pp. 12 - 18; and Charles Tracy, English Medieval Furniture and Woodwork, Victoria and Albert Museum (1988), pp. 164 - 171, for various types of linenfold panel. A related quadruple linenfold-carved coffer, again of both boarded and panelled construction, sold Christie's, South Kensington, 'The Manor House, Bramcote', 24 May 2001, Lot 335. The coffer is illustrated Victor Chinnery, Oak Furniture: The British Tradition, p. 30. fig. 4:20, and has scroll-profiled front spandrels which are likely to be similar in design to those originally found on this lot. A framed oak coffer with linenfold panelling, dated to circa 1500, with a raised moulded edge, again simulating a single panel, as found here, is in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum [Museum No, W.28-1930]. A further related Elizabethan example, also with carved ribbed folds and crosses to the linenfold panels, sold Sotheby's, 'The Age of Oak and Walnut', 28 September 2004, Lot 65.