Cottage chest, a folk art chef-d’œuvre – 17ᵗʰ century – Gers
Cottage chest, a folk art chef-d’œuvre – 17ᵗʰ century – Gers
Cottage chest, a folk art chef-d’œuvre – 17ᵗʰ century – Gers

Cottage chest, a folk art chef-d’œuvre – 17ᵗʰ century – Gers [MP006]

Highly original and cleverly designed, this wedding gift chest, the work of a provincial cabinetmaker, shows an inventive and “no-nonsense” approach with special attention paid to the choice of wood species.
This chest is made up of six strong boards, all from the same tree: one board for the sculpted front, one board for the top, one for the back, one on each side and one for the bottom.
Their size shows how amazingly old the tree trunk must have been. Cut up into 70 cm long pieces, the trunk was more than 1 metre in diameter! So this chestnut tree was more than 150 years old and was probably at least 30 m high.

Reference: MP006