Beschreibung:

An exceptionally rare small boarded oak ventilated mural cupboard, circa 1450-1500, English or Flemish Possibly a tabernacle Of five-sided form including a central hinged door, each side with a reserve of floral quartered carving above three slot-openings, highlighted with delicate punched-decoration, beneath a leafy-triform carved gallery, stamped initials 'IB' below the door, 40cm wide x 30.5cm deep x 45.5cm high, (15 1/2in wide x 12in deep x 17 1/2in high) Fußnoten Provenance: The Clive Sherwood Collection. Purchased from John King Antiques, Much Wenlock, Shropshire, 2 August 1982. Clive Sherwood inventory label to the rear of the door. This cupboard may have had an ecclesiastical purpose; to protect the served host and the vessels used in the sacrament of the Holy Communion, or as a reliquary to contain the bones and other relics of a saint, see Charles Tracy, Church Furniture in England (2001), p. 183. The six vacant-holes to the top of the cupboard undoubtedly relate to a former superstructure, possibly a spire. See for example a Northern French tabernacle in the Victoria & Albert Museum [no. 721:2-1895], and a 'reliquary coffer', St. Mary College, New Oscott, Sutton Coldfield, Warwickshire ibid., p. 183. Although this cupboard has an English 'feel', it is almost impossible, due to the enormous rarity of 15th century furniture, and the importation of Continental furniture into England, to categorically refer to this lot as late Plantagenet or early Tudor, or as definitively English.