Storage Trunk
Leather
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Storage chests and boxes were produced throughout the Renaissance and up until recent times. They are a useful form and are among the most basic in terms of construction. We find them in provincial areas, decorated with local folk motifs. There are wonderful painted chests, for example, from Germany. Each area gave these coffers and chests its own particular form of decoration.
In Renaissance Italy the chest was called a cassone—a long, low box with a flat lid (in its most basic form), meant to store linens. It often played a symbolic role in the customs of marriage, with wedding cassoni being ostentaciously decorated (with intarsia, painting, or carving) with the coats of arms and other symbols of the couple's families. After the sixteenth century, the form was submerged in the cassapanca—in essence, a cassone transformed into a settle. The cassone was the base and back and arms were added, turning it into a long seat or bench. Another important piece from Renaissance Italy was the credenza, a sort of buffet that stood against a wall and had a closed-in plinth base. It generally had a top of dining-table height above two frieze drawers, with two cabinet doors in the base. Using the frame-and-panel construction, the design was simple, often with panels and architectural elements being the primary decoration. This was a popular form in the Renaissance and the baroque periods (German cabinetmakers also built credenzas in the seventeenth century), and in fact, it is one of the few forms from this period that we do see on the American market today, most often with extensive repairs and replaced parts. |