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Europe » Antique “Saxon” Marriage Chest with Folk Painting
Ref: 5204
To say where this antique pine marriage box comes from could spark an online debate, it is from Transylvania, and typical of the painted furniture of the so-called Saxon people who lived there during the 19th century, they had come with the Teutonic Knights, invited in the 12th century to settle & take arms if necessary, a bulwark to the Eastern Infidel, their marriage trunks like this show Renaissance influence, during the later 19th century when Nationalism was in vogue & after the emancipation of the serfs, how you painted your furniture, and yr sunday dress, was all important, these folk expressions defined your tribe & ethnicity. In this piece, which is interesting, we see rather as folk music absorbs other influences, a nod to other traditions, Transylvania was a multi-ethnic principality or realm under the rule of the Magyars then the Austrian, & just north of the Saxon Lands were the Szekely, a Hungarian peoples, and the tulip flower on this piece acknowledges their painted furnitiure, the row or arcade of semi-circlular geometric forms along the bottom of this piece might also be a reference to the abstract scroll carved dowry chests or arcs of the Vlach shepherds who were the largest of the three main ethnic groups in this region.
This is a very good condition piece, nice size, clean to interior.
Transylvania mid to late 19th cent
H: 60cm (23.6in)
W: 121cm (47.6in)
D: 50cm (19.7in)
SOLD
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