Muniment chest
Category
Furniture
Date
1500 - 1600
Materials
Oak, bound with strips of rawhide and iron, black-painted, furniture of iron
Measurements
83 x 204 x 81.5 cm
Place of origin
Flanders
Order this imageCollection
Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire
NT 1128053
Summary
A black-painted oak, rawhide and iron standard, or muniment chest, possibly imported from Flanders, possibly English, 15th/16th century, of a type used to store valuables and muniments, and possibly one of the many 'chestes', 'standards' and 'trunckes' described in the inventory of Hardwick Hall in 1601. This example, with a lid with flat central plank and angled side planks. Covered originally with rawhide under the iron strapwork. The long sides fitted with large angular carry handles, and with two iron locks and hasps to the front and iron hinges. Covered in black paint, which is recent, and it is probable that some of the rawhide has been replaced.
Provenance
Possibly one of the many 'trunckes', 'standards' or 'iron bound chestes' mentioned in the Hardwick Hall inventory of 1601. By descent until, following the death of Edward William Spencer Cavendish, 10th Duke of Devonshire (1895 - 1950), Hardwick Hall and its contents were accepted by HM Treasury in part payment of death duties and transferred to the National Trust, in 1959.
References
Rowell, Christopher, 'Furniture at Hardwick Hall - II', in David Adshead and David Taylor, Hardwick Hall: A Great Old Castle of Romance (2016), 167