Varnished Furniture In the Middle Ages

Not so long ago Steffen and I went to the Philadelphia Museum of Art to see what they had to offer in their medieval collection. The trip there took more than two hours, and we had to be back home at a reasonable time due to the fact that he has a family, so I was mostly taking pictures instead of studying what was on exhibit.

If I have limited time in a museum I tend to operate in a "shoot first, look later" sort of mode. When 'later' came, and I was studying my pictures, I was pleasantly surprised to see a detail that I had never noticed in any paintings before. In this painting, by an anonymous Flemish painter working in the last quarter of the 15th century, I saw evidence of a highly polished furniture surface.

It is amazing what you can find in a painting if you
spend the time to study it

This is important, and I make mention of it, because most people seem to assume that (unpainted) medieval furniture was dull and dry, either entirely unfinished or perhaps only having a single coat of linseed oil, which gives not sort of gloss to the surface.

Zoom one

Zoom 2; here you can see the lines of the drapery reflected in the surface

I looked through pictures of my own furniture and realised that ordinarily, the glossy surfaces that I work so hard to achieve do not really show up very well in photographs. This is important because it would be a detail that someone would probably not ordinarily put into a painting either. Below are a couple pictures of furniture which I know to have a very fine sheen of varnish to them because I made it, but that sheen is not well reflected in the photos.

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In the first picture, only the corner of the room causes a reflection line to

the top. The front is every bit as polished as the top is, however. In the second

picture, only the side reveals that the surface is shiny. This box has a very

bright French polish finish, but there is no reflection at all to the top surface

in this Photo. the third picture is of a chest which has a well polished and 

waxed finish, but shows no evidence of such.

Seeing this detail in the painting from Philadelphia, I looked through other pictures to see if I could find further examples which portrayed this characteristic. Sure enough, one of my pictures from the MET had a bench which also exhibited a highly polished surface.

Detail of a painting in the MET

Detail of the detail; here you can see that there are some reflections from the
book and the column behind; this painting represents a bench which would
have a polish every bit as bright and glossy as the one on the box
pictured above.

Cennino Cennini mentions varnish and Theophilus gives two recipes for making it. There is no real difference to his varnish recipe of the 11th century than there is to that which is in a book I have from the late 19th century.

If varnish existed, it must have been used; but for what. In Theophilus' writing he only specifically mentions using it on paintings, metal, and on doors, but it seems to me safe to assume that it would also have been used on furniture, and here are two 15th century examples which clearly show that it was. Once one sees these examples, and knows what he is looking for, there are bound to be others.

Detail of a 15th century painting and a model reproduction of the room

Above is a detail, found in Wikipedia, of the famous Anolfini Wedding, by Jan van Eyke; below it is a picture I found on the web, of someone's model of the room seen in the painting, perhaps used in a dollhouse. I show these two  pictures so that one can see that in the original painting there is actually 

much more highlights to the carving than is visible in the model, which has  a less polished finish. It requires very specific lighting from a sharp angle to achieve any sort of meaningful highlighting to a carved surface, as can be seen from the picture of my carved chest pictured above. It is a shame that I could not find a more clear picture of this painting, because the highlights on it are brighter than they look from this photo, but it definitely represents a varnished chair. Below is pictured a detail of a stool which I made, which exhibits some of the same highlight details from direct overhead light (the sun); much like the direct side-lighting which illuminates the objects in the painting.

A brightly polished piece of furniture under strong
direct lighting shows up the carved edges as white
lines.

Knowing what to look for, and allowing for period stylistic trends, I now have more confidence to believe something that I have long suspected, which is that the details in this painting, by an anonymous 13th century Italian painter, exhibited in the Washington National Gallery, also represents an highly varnished chair.

Detail of a painting in the Washington National Gallery

My original reason for believing that this represented a highly varnished chair, when I first saw it 22 years ago, was because of the similarity of the treatment of the highlights on the fabric, which represent silk, and the highlights on the wooden parts. Now that I have seen later paintings which clearly demonstrate a varnished surface, and I know that varnish existed and was used, I have no reason to doubt that this is what is represented in this and other similar 13th century paintings. Much information put into paintings has been lost to us from the changes in painting techniques and the way we see and portray things.

Videre Scire

Oh, The Possibilities

Before the artist, stands a blank canvas; he is a creator, and the worlds, places, or events which he might bring to life are endless. His only limitation are his skill and his time; what will he create?

Back view of my 10th century box; ready to begin... what?

The same held true for the medieval furniture maker, there was an almost infinite range of possible ways he could ornament a box, trunk, or chest and we cannot always appreciate that from the few remains that we might encounter in museums, or from the limited details in the iconographic depictions found in illuminated manuscripts or paintings. (this blog is generally referring to the pre-13th century medieval world)

A modern person would be completely satisfied with some paint, varnish, or perhaps some veneer or at best some marquetry to this box, but in this blog I will show, from actual surviving examples, some of those endless possibilities just mentioned.

Some of the pictures are my own, some came from the websites of the museums where the objects are found, and others from image searches on the web. I have tried to list the source of all the photos for this post.

A painted box, in the MET
(own photo)

It would be nice to list the types of potential finish organised by the cost of work which went into the making of them, but there are not enough records to know how much workers were paid for the various types of work done, also there are so many degrees of quality and skill level, so that a very finely painted casket might cost more than a quickly done bone laminated one or a finely wrought repoussé chest might cost more than an ivory one. Because of the huge amount of grey area, after a few obviously less expensive examples, I will just try to group them by type.

(Incidentally, this casket which I photographed at the Cloisters is labeled as being early 13th century, and supposedly depicts scenes from "the capture of Orange" a specific incident in 9th century French history. However, I see nothing of particular on this box to identify it as such. To me it looks like a generic box with stock period decorations, done purely for the sake of ornament. I have sent a message to the museum to inquire about any supporting evidence for their theory, but as yet have not received a reply. In addition, I take issue with the dating, because, based on the style of artwork and the costumes, it could come from any time between circa 1100 and the early 13th century. [See another chest below, from the late 11th century which has a very similar style of artwork in a different medium.] I much prefer when Museums give the whole range of possible dating unless they have specific evidence to point to a particular date, in which case they should state that evidence.)

Early 13th century casket covered in embroidery

I am only making a guess that a chest covered in silk embroidery would be more expensive than a painted one, but it is only a guess. Silk is, and always has been, expensive, but the work of covering the box in linen and then applying and scraping the gesso smooth also consumes a lot of time before the painting actually even gets started; it is probably impossible to say which one would have actually cost more?

13th century bead-covered pyx in the Schnütgen Museum, Köln
(own photo)

I have not encountered any box with the form such as those we are discussing, covered in bead-work, but the fact that there are a few surviving small boxes finished in that manner, and the fact that bead work was a means of ornamenting numerous objects, I find it highly probable that this was a viable option.

Leather covered coffret in the Germanischen Nationalmuseum Nürnberg

Another similar type of covering to cloth would be leather. This was a very popular medium for finishing boxes, cases, and satchels. It could be flat and punched, or, as this example, highly embossed and worked. In addition the leather would have been painted and gold or silver leaf could, and was, used to further enhance the more expensive examples. (Yet another form of ornament known only from writing, would be mosaic made of crushed eggshells. Perhaps the finished result would look something like the bead-work pictured on the pyx, above.)

12th century casket covered in silver leafed gesso
St-Servatiusbasilika Maastricht
(Wikipedia)

Speaking of metal leaf, here is a chest which has been coated in thick gesso and then ornamented with a punch to trace out a leaf and vine motif, it was then covered with silver leaf. Similar work was done in gold leaf as well, another variation on this idea was moulded gesso, referred to as pastiglia.

Carved, painted and partially gilt wooden casket from the 12th century
(Victoria and Albert Museum)

Probably the single most common form of ornamentation for boxes, chests and caskets would have been carving, which would have almost always been painted or gilded before the 14th century. (The only exceptions would have been something carved from a "precious [i.e. figured or box] wood" There are a handful of surviving carved boxes in various states of preservation going back to the 9th century and they exhibit a wide range of carving quality which has nothing to do with the time period in which they were made, and everything to do with the amount of money someone was willing to pay for them,

German casket with inset carving 12th century
(from a book)

As with every other art form, there was an endless variety to the style and quality of carving. Some carving was done in the solid body of the box, but more expensive pieces had carved filigree work. This allowed for cleaner details on the sides of the carving and facilitated quicker and neater work in the painting or gilding of the background. The oldest chests of this type that I know of are from the 12th century, but there exist many ivory examples of this type of work going back to the 7th century and there are wooden examples from Egypt going back at least to the 4th century which suggests that such caskets probably also existed throughout the entire medieval period in Europe as well. (The dry climate of Egypt allowed many more artifacts to have been preserved there.)

Painted Italian ivory casket, 11th century in Sankt Maria im Kapitol, Köln
(own photo)

Because it is a more durable material, as well as being more valuable, there are many more ivory caskets which survive, than wooden ones; except that most "ivory caskets" are actually wooden, with ivory or bone plates laminated to them. Because there are more of them which have survived, we can see a much wider range of technique and quality to this type of box. The simplest are made up with thin smooth plates which have been painted, partially gilded, or both, as is the case with the one pictured above. Other examples used simple geometric incisions to form decorative schemes, and could also be enhanced with colour and gilding. Moving up the cost scale, there were carved bone and carved ivory, and then ivory carved and enhanced with gold and gems. As I said, the potential is nearly infinite.

A line incised carved casket of the 11th century enhanced with colour
and gilded copper foil visible through the openwork design.
The style of this artwork is rather similar to the painted casket at the
beginning of this article
(Sotheby's)

Early 12th century bone casket with colour and gilded copper foil, its
original lock-plate would have been gilded
(Heilbronn)

Carved ivory plates overlay another gilded foil backing on this  12th century
reliquary shrine, now housed in the Cloisters.
(own photo)

The red and green colour has been infused into a resin (probably glue) which originally filled the incisions left by the tool used to make the circular geometric ornaments to this piece.

9th century ivory casket from Metz. The metal hardware is a later addition.
The ornament of this casket has traces of gilding to parts of the carving
(web)

For some curious reason, a workshop in the city of Köln, in the 12th and 13th
centuries, seems to have produced a large number of pieces done in an archaic
style. The work of this group of carved ivory containers, reliquaries, chests,
boxes, book covers, and game tables, is much more in keeping with the 10th
than the 12th and 13th century. This piece is now in the Cluny Museum -
the corner braces are a later addition.
(own photo)

Although from the standpoint of an artifact, it is sad to see this piece half
destroyed by thieves stealing the gold foil and gems from it, it is nonetheless
very informative for the study of such objects. Here we clearly see the method
of construction on such a piece. Several of the examples we have just seen
 had the gold foil behind the ivory, but this one employs it as framing.
This Spanish box is dated to 1059.
(web)

This brings us to the next type of decorated casket, which is variations on a metal covering. As we see with the last example, there is not always a clear line of distinction between various mediums and metal coverings were often further enhanced by other techniques.

Embossed silver foil casket ca 1150
(Chicago Art Institute)

Insular style metalwork over a wooden core.
This is not a very pretty example and there are similar objects in a much better
state of preservation, but this clearly shows, once again, the wooden chest
which is at the core of all of these objects.
(Norwegian University Databank)

This type of decoration is based on gilt cast metal ornaments, applied over
gilded metal foil, on a wooden core. This one is from the 13th century and is in
the Cluny Museum
(own photo)

I chose this particular casket because of its legs which are in keeping with the
style of box that my "9th century box" project is based on. Caskets with post-
type legs persisted through the medieval period and (perhaps) originated in
Egypt, from which numerous examples survive going back 4000 years BC.
The Champleve enamel work adds yet another layer of ornament.
(Sotheby's)

Yet another variation on metal ornament, is engraving. This sort of work led up
to the copperplate etchings made famous by artists such as Albrecht Dürer at
the end of the Middle Ages.This box comes from the early 11th century, the
gems are a later addition to this piece, but are original on other similar work.
(Romanesque art of Aragon, website)

I have been searching for years for a picture of this large chest in the Sion
Cathedral treasury. It is in rather rough shape because all of the silver
had been stripped from it but now has been put back as well as possible on a
reproduction wooden core. This 11th cent. casket also has projecting corners
(web)

A priceless treasure of the Oviedo Cathedral is this agate chest, which was
made in 918, and donated to the cathedral. It is made of gold foil which
encases pieces of cut and polished agate, applied over a wooden core.
It is further enhanced with precious and semi-precious stones.
(Wikipedia)

Coming from about the same time as the last example, this casket is in the
cathedral treasury in Astorga and is another example of north Spanish work.
It is made of embossed and chased gilded foil and is further enhanced with
cloisonne enamel decoration.
(web)

My earliest example is of the 7th century (only slightly older than the Insular
example above) it is made of gold wire and cell-work soldered to a foil base
and infilled with garnet and other gems. This type of work had been
practiced in Europe for over a thousand years by the time this box was made.
Originally, all of the empty cells in the fields of this box were filled with enamel,
some of which still remains on the bottom.
(Catharijneconvent Museum, Utrecht)

These last three examples are probably of the most expensive type of work done, but since I love wood, I will finish with a couple of the most precious of wooden treasures that I know of, both German work of the 12th century. (Theophilus mentions Germany as specifically being a place producing noteworthy wood-work.)

Marquetry chest, 12th century, with bone accent
(Hildesheim Cathedral Museum)

This is one of the most phenomenal pieces of medieval woodwork that I know of, and completely flips the cover off of most people's concept of woodworking at this time in history. In addition to the intarsia certosina work on the main box, the border has been made of a veneer comprised of two separate pieces of wood, one light, the other ebony, which have been repeatedly slit in such a way that they could be forced into one another, creating a stripped effect which does not go all the way across the width. (the intention was to give the illusion of a twisted column.) In an early 20th century work, which has been cited by many authors since, the opinion was put forth that marquetry was first re-introduced to Europe (the Romans practiced the art in their time) into southern Italy by Arab workers in Sicily in the 14th century. This is obviously clear proof against that notion.

12th century casket from the treasury of Essen Cathedral with 13th century
metal mounts
(Flicker)

Even more amazing than the last piece is this, my absolute favourite; not only does it have more of the fine intarsia work, it also incorporates carved and painted decorations. In my humble opinion, one could not have a finer medieval wooden casket than this.

So with all of this information to work from, what will I be doing with my box?

covered in linen
(if it was still 1960 I would be finished, it looks just like several books and my
radio from when I was a kid)

eight coats of gesso

lots of scraping

These photos which show the current status of the box will give a hint. I first made some size from parchment, as directed by Cennini, and then applied the size and linen as directed by him (and also Theophilus) I then made some gesso with the size and applied it to build up a good thick layer and then scraped it down very smooth and even... After all that, - I am still facing a blank canvas.

Something is Missing...

Last March I tried to watch the movie Macbeth on a flight from Bangkok, but the director had chosen such a bleak, drab, crude, grey setting for the movie, that I was not able to enjoy it, and after about 20 minutes, gave up watching. The problem, as I saw it, was that it was so inaccurate to the reality that my research has shown, insofar as the clothing, furnishings, and architecture were concerned. It was not enough that nearly everyone in the film was wearing black, brown, and drab grey, they even reduced the colour saturation in the outdoor settings to make the vivid, beautiful green Scottish landscapes appear drab.

My research has shown that medieval people loved colourful and highly decorated surroundings and objects. Modern people go into museums and see plain, dry, grey and brown wooden furniture, drab unfinished stones, and unpainted plaster and assume what they are looking at must have been how things were when they were made. Almost any reenactment setting you will see supports this by exhibiting unadorned unfinished wooden furniture as well. To me, this contrasts greatly with the fact that almost anything we find with even a hint of its original finish, shows us that even among the most remote and primitive communities, some form of coloured ornamentation was used. Wealthy people had gold, silver, jewels, and a wide range of dyes and paints to chose from, but even simple people used the natural colours around them to create yellows, reds, greens and browns, in combination with black and white to achieve a lively degree of colourfulness.

A nice example of a 14th century chest? The wood is all there, but what
about the way it was finished?

I think I borrowed my first picture for this post from my friends at St Thomas Guild, taken at Cloister Isenhagen or perhaps Ebstorf. (I forgot) It shows a "clamp-front" type of chest, probably from the late 13th or 14th century. Any medieval enthusiast, including myself, would be thrilled to own such a piece of furniture even though it is very rough and worn. Though it is a fantastic piece of furniture, I believe it looks almost nothing like it did when it was newly made.

Here, posted below, are two pictures which illustrate my point using modern objects. (It was not easy to find two pictures of the same vehicle taken at the same [almost] angle.)

1931 Studebaker Dictator, now

A 1931 Studebaker as new. 

Whilst the form and most of the basic components are still there, obviously there is a huge difference between the cars appearance, as it currently sits along the famous "Route 66", and what it looked like when it rolled off of the assembly line in 1931. Might the same not be applicable to something which has been used and abused for 600+ years? I would venture the answer is, "yes".

I mentioned St Thomas Guild a moment ago; they recently posted a link to the Norwegian University Museum's photoportal. In this website you can enter a variety of words (in Norwegian) or museum numbers and see a vast array of medieval objects, mostly from Norway and Sweden. This site was of interest to me for the purpose of finding high resolution images of some of the altar panels which I know to be in abundance in Norwegian museums. (I was a bit disappointed in this regard, as there were not that many in the database.) My search, however landed a few other gems, both real and figuratively, which I found interesting.

Door from an "altar cabinet" 13th century. The original
yellow of the robe and halo has faded to a dull colour, but
enough of the ornamentation remains to see that this was
once a very finely decorated door.*

The picture which primarily sparked the inspiration for this weeks blog post was this cabinet door from an altar shrine. It comes from the early 13^th century, and is very reminiscent in style to the drawings of Villard de Honnecourt; quite firmly grounded in the Universal Gothic style of the 13^th century. The sad part is that the rest of the cabinet which the door belonged to seems to no longer exist, but the good part is that the door itself is in a very fair state of preservation, considering its age. By comparing the painting at the top with that at the bottom, we see that some of the subtle details which gave the illusion of depth and form to the vegetal elements have worn away, and there is some chipping and flaking to the paint, but we can well see the beauty that was achieved by the use of paint on what would otherwise have been a dull, ordinary, flat wooden panel. Modern taste is perfectly happy with plain flat wooden panels (or even plastic ones - horrors!) unadorned white walls, and bare stone, but we should not try to project our modern taste onto history.

I have mentioned in previous blog postings about the way paint and ornament can be erased by time through the debonding of the gesso undercoat, so this post is a bit of a repeat on that theme, but also an expansion on it. As I said, nearly every medieval object which has any semblance of its original character shows us that people of the Middle Ages loved colourful things. Here are two very different artefacts which help to illustrate that. The first is a shard of pottery from the Norwegian database. It shows that the pot it came from was decorated in earth-red, yellow, green, white and black. Very different from the ubiquitous drab grey crockery we usually see in settings such as the previously mentioned movie. The second comes from a manuscript in the library of Engelberg, (Codex 3, folio 157v to be exact) This manuscript was written in the middle of the 12^th century, and is very interesting for the fact that several of the parchment sheets used for it manufacture had tears in them; rather than discarding these pieces of velum, someone very creatively stitched the slits together with various coloured silk thread. It is evident that the repair is contemporary with the book because the writing avoids these areas. On the portion of a page I have reproduced here, there are yellow, copper-orange, green and wine (rose madder) coloured threads, one other colour of red, another of green and two of yellow are found elsewhere in the manuscript. This shows both a level of creativity and the love of colour which I have mentioned.

*

Two very different types of objects found thousands of kilometres from one
another, but both showing that even comen objects were enhanced
with colour even if in simple detail

I mentioned the way that a gesso ground can dissolve and leave a completely blank surface to what had been quite a vividly ornamented object. The database revealed many other objects which illustrated this problem to a greater or less degree. Below are a few more examples, and my commentary on them.

Another altar cabinet, this time from the late 15th century. Note the
simple use of stars and lines to enliven the blank areas and the frame to
the doors. Observe the bottom to see what remained once the woodwork
became damp and the paint flaked off.*

This detail comes from a late 12th century sculpture. It shows a section of
Mary's chair. I included it because we can 'almost' see how this chair would
have been decorated. The pale yellow-green paint has a dark layer over it
which would have been painted in such a way as to make foliage; the lighter colour
showing through. There is a band left plain, which has been enhanced with black
'dots'. Below the knob can be seen the remains of a blue-grey and a black stripe.*

Notice the areas where dampness has entirely obliterated any
trace of the paint to this altar frontal. Scroll-work like that seen
in the spandrels could very well have been used to enhance the
decoration of chests, boxes and cupboards,*

The Borre Cross
Arm of a crucifix which has lost its Christ figure and most of its decoration.
Enough remains to reveal that it was brightly painted, as well as partially
gilded. (the carved vine scrolls and the lion which is missing its wing). The
carved lozenge shapes were also gilded and probably originally had
coloured glass inserts, imitating gems. Red, green, blue, yellow and black
were used to decorate this, as well as gilding; in all, it would have been
a very vivid object.*

Not all objects from a given time or place were created equally and there have always been more and less ornate things created. Another cross from about the same time period and geographic location illustrate this variety. This cross relied much more on paint than it did on carving for its ornamentation, and so would be much less interesting were all of its paint gone. Happily, enough has survived so that we can envision its original condition. It also illustrates the way what now looks like a plain unadorned object could have originally been very elaborately ornamented.

Base of a crucifix showing the loss of paint due to moisture*

Left arm of the same cross showing better preserved decorations (again, the
original yellow has faded to a dull buff colour) Red, black, white and
blue-grey were the other colours used on this piece.*

Not every object was so highly ornamented, whilst others were even more so. The determining factors would have been geographic location, money invested in the project, and the value the user placed on the intended object in the first place. On a whole, Norway would have had less highly sophisticated objects than things produced in Rome or even Köln, at any given period, but that is not to discount the quality of created objects in the former mentioned country. Even though Norway was remote and had less contact with the rest of Europe, it was not altogether left out, as the styles of ornamentation on these objects clearly demonstrate. 

On the other hand, Norway was a remote place, and historically, one often finds much more primitive conditions there. Subsequently the objects from these regions are also often much more "crude" than one might find in more urban areas of Europe. Regardless of the remoteness of an area, however, the same basic principle still applies; people did not like plain, unadorned objects. Here are two more objects which illustrate this point.

A section of paneling from a wall. It is only decorated
with black spots on a white ground, but still clearly
shows that no matter how primitive, people still wanted
ornamentation to their surroundings, not bare unfinished
wood and stone.*

Thousands of this sort of enameled shrine were produced in various centres
of Europe in the 12th and 13th centuries. Normally they were much more ornate
than this (though this is the back, which was usually less ornate than the front)
but it shows yet again, that even if expenses were to be spared, ornamentation
was nonetheless employed.*

With this information, let us come back to the chest at the beginning of this article. There is no way to know with any certainly exactly how it would have been decorated, but it is a safe bet to assume it was painted in some manner. The degree and quality of that painting would mostly have been determined by the amount that the owner wished to spend for the project. By studying other artwork and objects of the time period in which it was made, we can make some educated guesses on its original ornamentation. The stiles or "legs" might have had some vegetal or floral ornamentation to them, perhaps as on the inside of this Italian chest dated 1290.

A chest from Venice, dated 1290 shows again the destruction that time has
taken to a formerly very ornate piece of furniture. Incidentally this chest
was not first prepared with a heavy coat of gesso, which has allowed some
degree of the painting to survive as it was not thick enough to all scale off.

Most probably the arcades would have been filled with figures; if the chest was used in an ecclesiastical setting, they would have doubtless been saints, apostles, or the Virgin, and the Christ, or a combination of all of them. Given the proportion of the arches, there would most likely have been two figures beneath each. If the object was for secular use, it could have had figures from a romance, mythology, history, or contemporary persons.

Depending on the quality of the painting employed, the columns and arches would have been painted to represent architecture, either simply or with multiple colours, patterns and shading. (Notice how the above door panel achieved dimension to the drapery of St Peter simply by the use of black lines of varying thickness; more like a drawing than a painting.) Surely the semi-circular shapes at the bottom of the columns would have been filled in to represent a column base, and the usual method of doing this was to paint it with some sort of acanthus inspired design such as this cross terminal from an altar baldaquin of one of the Norwegian stave churches. (This is now in the Bergen Museum). Variations of this sort of base were used in paintings, sculptures and illuminations since at least the 8th century, and were extremely popular motifs in the 12 and 13th century artwork throughout Europe.

An acanthus terminal to a cross arm. This sort of terminus was very popular in
Romanesque and early Gothic artwork.*

This leaves us to ponder the detail of the remaining area of the chest. Again, the quality of its decoration would have had a lot to do with the end result. On the simplest level, it would have been a solid colour with dots, circles, stars or other simple ornament, (or it could have had some sort of grid pattern like the reliquary casket pictured above). Below is another example of this sort of simple work, from a 13th century baldaquin over a sculpture of the Virgin. (again, from Norway)

Stars and simple floral shapes painted in a single colour add decoration to
an otherwise plain area *

Were a more ambitious programme employed in the decorative scheme, perhaps thin scrolling vines like those seen in the altar panel depicted above would have been used. Another possibility could have been a geometric pattern like that in the background of the picture showing the detail of the cross arm. This was a very popular design based on interconnected circles which leave a nearly square area in the centre of each. This pattern can be found in everything from floor tiles, to wall ornamentation and jewelry; as with everything else, simple quickly executed examples exist along side of very carefully worked, multi-coloured versions. Below are more examples of fill work, used to ornament blank or flat areas of design. 

Fleur-de-Lis, and leaves from an early 14th century
chest in the MET. Notice the colour change on the recently
exposed areas of blue.

From another Norwegian altar frontal, this shows painted gems and an
imitation of figured wood. Note also the wavy two-tone green, and white and grey
 borders. This was a popular enamel technique which was also often imitated
on painted surfaces. The buff coloured areas are gilded though this picture
does not very well reflect that fact.*

More vine and scroll infill design, Also an acanthus roundel (damaged)*

This is a border from an early 12th century Spanish wall fresco and shows
another popular border treatment which could also be used on uprights such
furniture legs and columns.

Two colour ornament; the relatively thick scale is due to the size of the
ornament; this is a very small area in an illuminated manuscript.

Another fragment of an object, again a baldaquin from a Madonna sculpture.
This exhibits once more the use of colour as well as quick line ornament to
enhance an otherwise plain flat field. Green and gold originally trimmed the
arch, bordered by a thin line of black. Once again the yellow has faded to buff.

Until now I have been discussing painting as a means of enhancing furniture and other wooden objects, I do not want to give the impression, however, that I believe all wooden objects were painted in the Middle ages. Late medieval artwork by painters such as Van Eyke and Campin clearly infer that furniture could be left unpainted (though it says nothing about varnish, wax or oil). To what degree this was true cannot be determined, only that it existed. Furthermore, These paintings mostly show the possessions of the Flemish bourgeoisie in the first half of the 15th century, and therefore cannot speak for the remainder of Europe nor the rest of the medieval period. Other painters of the 14th and 15th centuries, painting in a somewhat "realistic" style, such as Master Theodoric of Prague, usually depict their furniture as being painted or gilded. Even one of Van Eyek's chairs, in the same basic form as all of his others, is depicted as gilded, because it is occupied by Mary, "Queen of Heaven" not a merchant class person. Some wooden objects were made with intarsia, marquetry, and veneers, and obviously they would not have been painted, so a balance of many sorts of finishes including natural wood, would be the most probable conclusion. 

Furthermore, though paint was a very common treatment for wooden objects, it was not the only means of ornamentation. Cenion Cennini mentions using eggshells to ornament (think low cost mosaic); cloth, parchment, leather, gold leaf and even beads were also used. Another type of ornamentation, used in connection with gesso and paint, was the art of applying moulded low-relief (usually) ornaments, also made of gesso, to the object before painting and gilding it, as is seen in this detail of a sculpture in the MET (and found in hundreds of surviving Italian "cassone" and picture frames and altars from all over Europe).

Red, yellow, and two colours of blue, along with three dimensional gilded gesso
originally decorated this French sculpture chair from the mid 12th century,
 now in the MET

I mentioned intarsia as another means of decorating wooden furniture and the Museum database did not disappoint in that regard either. Here is a 14th century (?) wax tablet, "booklet" which was originally decorated with a geometric intarsia pattern. It was a shame that I could find no coloured photo of it, but I know of other objects made with this technique from the 12th and 13th centuries. Once again, moisture damage could entirely erase any trace of such ornament from a wooden object.

A multi-leaved wax tablet (with its last writing still visible) shows the remains
of a very nice intarsia pattern. I have no idea of the precise date of this object,
it was only listed as "medieval", but other work like this exists from as early
as the 12th century.

Last of all, many wooden objects were covered in metal foils. There still exist, examples of this type of work from every century of the medieval period, in which all or most of the metal has been ripped off for its scrap value, (copper with gilding or silvering). We can usually know that the object in question was covered in this manner because some of the foil was carelessly left on, or by the shape and context of the object. (a shrine in a church) but how much private furniture would have also been ornamented in this manner? It is impossible to answer the question, but I feel confident there would have been such items, especially from the earlier part of the Middle Ages. Charlemagne had, according to his will, four tables "made of gold and of silver" with scenery and ornamentation, but surely these were wooden objects with foil coverings.

Once again, the ornamentation of the object completely transforms the
wooden object, It is surprising how little the nails effect the wood. An object
originally covered in gilded foil which no longer had its covering might be
hard to detect, and nearly impossible to distinguish from one which had been
covered in cloth or leather.*

In closing, it is impossible to recreate an accurate reproduction of something in which you have no original to go on, however, it is still important for the sake of history and those looking for answers, to be aware that the dark ages were not nearly so "dark" as modern popular culture (largely influenced by 18th and 19th century notions that everything before the present was "crude" and "horrible" -  A quick example comes a story concerning the famous Bayeux Tapestry which was used to cover military wagons during the French Revolution. Mark Twain is also reported to have commented that it was made by rank amateurs.) would have us to believe. Certainly there were many things that were crudely made, but that fact neither began nor ended with the middle ages. Crude things have been produced in every age and in every country right up until this very moment. One thing, however, that we should be sure of, was that regardless of the crudeness or fineness of medieval objects, they were highly decorated in some manner (even the smallest and simplest of objects), and above all, colourful in a natural organic way.

* All photos marked with an asterisk were sourced from the Norwegian University Museum's website though most have been cropped and all have been re-sized. They are used with the intent of education and research for the enlightenment of the general public.

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