The Utrecht Psalter; Part VI

It has been awhile since we had a visit with the Utrecht Psalter, so I thought it was about time for the next installment in this series. This week's post brings us to the letter 'R' which is for Round Table. I did not do 'T' for table, because there are two types of tables and I wanted to cover each one of them separately.

Round Table from the 9th century Utrecht Psalter

I have counted 22 individual round tables in this Psalter, and they can be subdivided into three subcategories. The first are three tables which have been depicted with no visible legs of any sort. When this practice first began is not known to me, but there is a 3rd century BC painted Greek vase in the MET which has a scene with a table completely covered in a white cloth, leaving no visible legs to support it. This became an exasperating (for someone interested in furniture design history) trend in the 11th and 12th centuries, to the point that it is hard to find any depictions of tables from that era actually illustrating the legs. They are almost always shown as a top with an elaborately draped covering cloth, seemingly floating in space, as if by magic. (This is simply another example of trends in illustrated fashion, much like the overly elongated legs of female models in fashion illustrations of the mid 20th century, meant to exemplify an illusionary ideal.)

This represents a round table, but there are no details, to indicate anything
about construction details or ornamental decoration.

A round top table, again with no support depicted, but showing the fashion
for covering the table with an elaborate drapery.
This illustration comes from a 9th century book cover in the BNF.

Coming back to our 9th century Psalter, it is interesting to note that none of these tables are shown with a cloth covering. This should not be interpreted to mean that people did not cover their tables with cloths at this time, several 9th century ivory carvings show tables draped with cloth, completely obscuring the details of construction, just as with the 11th and 12th century trend that I mentioned. (see above) There was a lot of regional and artistic variation, and anything one sees in medieval illustrations should not necessarily be applied to the whole of Europe. In fact there is so little left to study, from the first two thirds of the Middle Ages, that any glimpses we see are like trying to watch a football match standing 2 metres behind a picket fence. Those glimpses, however, are enough to wet the apatite, and give people such as myself, reason to try to keep watching in hopes of seeing something fascinating.

There still exists one other very well illustrated 9th century Psalter, known as the Stuttgart Psalter, which could not be more different from the Utrecht Psalter. None of its illustration bear any resemblance to either the images used, or the driving concepts behind their inclusion in the manuscript. This shows us the wide range of style, and the variation which existed throughout Europe during the 9th century. (and nothing changed, on that note, for the rest of the medieval period) Of interest, insofar as this discussion is concerned, on that point, is the fact that whilst the Utrecht Psalter has no fewer than 29 tables depicted, (among more than 200 illustrations) the Stuttgart Psalter only has one, from more than 300 illustrations.

From our manuscript we find that the second sub-type of round table depicted is one with straight legs; there is only one such example of this type however. Since these illustrations are merely sketches, with almost no details, it is impossible to say whether the artist was intending square or turned legs, but they do seem to have a bit of taper to them. The truly unusual detail, however, is that unlike all of the other round tables depicted with legs, this one has four legs, whereas the others all have three. Given the level of detail in this manuscript, this table is no different from a dining table that might have been made in the 17th 18th or 19th century. There are a scattering of other medieval illustrations of round, four legged tables from the various centuries, and we can probably safely conclude that such tables existed, in the guise of the ever changing period decorations, right through the medieval period.

A four legged round top table. Would these legs be turned? It is hard to say.
This illustration does seem to suggest that the legs are applied to the outside
perimeter of the top (as apposed to being mounted underneath)

The third, and by far most common form of round table depicted in this Psalter, is a type carried over from Greco-roman times; this is a tripod table with lion mask and paw feet. There are 18 such tables in this manuscript, which probably doubles the number of extant illustrated examples from the whole of the 9th century. One example was given at the top of this article and another is pictured below. Both are of the same type, but this second illustration suggests that such tables could be made quite large to allow many guests to be seated, calling to mind the Arthurian legend of the "Knights of the Round Table".

A round tripod table large enough to seat many people, yet still made in
the same style as the smaller ones.

Anyone paying attention will note that all three legs seem to be on the same side, but this is a stylistic representation, and has a tradition probably as old as the actual design of this type of table, a point illustrated by the following 5th century BC Etruscan representation of one of these tables.

When I was in MET I spent time searching for origins of medieval furniture
design, this 5th century BC Etruscan table tells us that when the 9th century
Utrecht Psalter was illustrated, this table design had already been around for
more than 1300 years.

When one speaks of "the Middle Ages" most people will conjure up some mental image of what that means to them; inevitably, this image will have much more of a resemblance to life in the 13th, 14th or 15th centuries, than to earlier periods. The fact is, that styles and tastes evolved over the course of history, and by the time the 13th century came around, there was very little which resembled life of the 8th or 9th centuries, much as 1970 had very little to do with 1920. In a broader sense, the "medieval" world of the 9th century bore much more of a resemblance to the Roman period (at least in regions once included in the Roman Empire) than it did to the "Middle Ages" of the 14th century. The following six illustrations will quickly point this out.

Roman town, from a Pompeian Mural in the MET 

9th century depiction of a town, from an ivory panel in the V&A

Roman Soldiers from Trajan's Column

9th Century mounted soldiers from a mid 9th century Psalter,
St Gall, Switzerland
The helmets are still very much the same, as is the length and form of
the clothing, one change which has occurred is the more prevalent use of
chain mail armour.  

Another of the 18 round tables from the Utrecht Psalter. This one is of a
smaller personal size, such as the following charred remnant found in
Herculaneum, buried in the 79 AD eruption of Mt Vesuvius

A very rare survivor (almost a survivor) this is the charred remains of a
Roman era table, very much like those illustrated in the
Utrecht Psalter

I have read so many references to medieval tables being "planks set on top" of "crude" trestles, or "tree trunks" that it makes me want to scream. The medieval artwork tells a very different tale to that notion. It is also interesting to note that the earliest example I have found to date, of a "trestle table" is from the 13th century. This is not to say that they did not exist before that time, but most pre 13th century depictions of tables are round, demilune, or rectangular on turned or square legs, with an occasional 'X' frame or pedestal base to round out the selection. Most early illustrations of tables clearly indicate some form of decoration to the supporting members, wherever any support is actually indicated.

In centres of commerce and industry and places of education, where society continued to thrive, the Roman style of art melted away much more slowly. In Aachen, the capitol of the Carolingian realm, we find a pair of lion masks on the cathedral doors (I believe these are actually cast copies made from the originals) which were made in the 9th century, Here we still see a lot of classical influence on the design, including the panel construction of the doors, the egg and dart moulding, the acanthus leaf wreaths, and the lion faces, (they originally held rings, used to pull the doors closed), but we can also see that the changes of artistic trends have left their own period stamp on them.

One could easily imagine these lion's faces carved on the terminals of
lion-paw legs and then we would have a 9th century version of
this sort of table

A 1st Century AD table from Pompeii, This is another example
of a Roman table, but in principle it is much the same as those
illustrated in the manuscript. To get a 9th century version, we
need to add 9th century style lions, such as those pictured
in the previous illustration

To sum things up, there is so little of anything left from the early medieval period that it is impossible to recreate that world, but little hints and fragments, and a bit of logical deductive reasoning can fill in a bit more of the void left by the destruction of so much of what once was. This Utrecht Psalter gives us some tantalising glimpses, and informs us that certain stylistic trends, such as lion shaped tripod tables were very slow in dying out and continued into the 9th century

Last minute addition, just in case someone gets the idea that the tables
depicted in the Utrecht Psalter are an anomaly. This is from a manuscript
known as the Drogo Sacramentary, which is found in the BNF and was
created in the middle of the 9th century.
(BNF Lat. 9428)

.

Videre Scire

A New Box

Sometimes I get the urge to work on Something different, even if I have not yet completed a project I am currently working on. Because of this, my friend Steffen has dubbed a couple of my projects, "Century Project" by way of saying he thinks, at the rate they are going, they will take a century to complete. I Have completed a couple of those 'century projects', but others are still in the works, such as my 9th century box. I enjoy working on it, and want to get it finished, but I realised, once I began working on it, that it was growing into a much larger project than I had first envisioned. Meanwhile, I would like to do something that I can get finished faster, and I also feel the urge to work on something different, for a change of pace. In fact, there are a thousand projects that I want to do, so if there are only three underway in my shop at once, then obviously I have been employing great restraint on my impulses. I once had 11 paintings in various stages of completion in my studio; it is just the way I work, and at 50 it is not likely to change.

Inside view of the new box

My latest project, then, is another box. (I like making boxes) I am calling this one the "Turn of the Millennium Box", because it will be decorated in a style of circa the year 1000. I have chosen a couple manuscripts of that period which will be the basis of the decoration for it. One of these manuscripts even has a little "historiated initial" (which is what a letter with a picture in it is called in the realm of illuminated manuscripts) which depicts a box like the one I am making.

Kölner Diözesan- und Dombibliothek MS Cod 141 Fol 53v M. 11jh

An historiated initial showing God giving a reliquary (box) to a priest 

What follows are some pictures and a brief explanation from the progress of the build.

Cutting box sides 

The sides were all cut from a piece of timber that was left lying about when I sliced 15mm off of a 38mm thick plank that I needed for a different project years ago. It seemed like a waste to plane it all away so I sawed it off on the band-saw. 6 years later, I finally found a use for it.

Planing box sides

Putting the 8th century style plane, that I made this spring, to work. It works nicely. For anyone new to my blog, all sawing, planing, and any other work required for the making of my pieces is done entirely with hand tools, from whatever stage the timber that I choose is in, when I begin. 

Cutting dovetails

I always cut the tails first.

Truing up the inside ends

Years ago I made this device for getting very clean and accurate tenons, it works good for dovetails as well.

For anyone who might want to take issue with my using dovetails on a medieval box, thinking that they are not "period correct", I counter, that in museums, I have personally observed boxes from the 7th, 9th, 11th and 13th through 15th century all made with dovetail joinery.

Beginning the top

As I said, whatever state I find the timber in when I start, I begin from there with hand tools. In this case, the lid will be made from a chunk of firewood left over from last years batch. (so two years since it was cut) This is a chunk of beach and I think it will make a great lid. It had a bit of a twist to it, so the first task was to make a flat face to work the other two sides from.

Roughing out the shape. You can see the box at
the top of the picture

I split a chunk off of the side with hammer and wedge, then went at it with the axe. A bit more axe-work went into it after this picture, as you will be able to see in the next. The axe is used because it takes off material much faster than a plane, even a scrub plane.

From the axe to the plane

In this picture, the first side (which will be the bottom) has been planed true, and now I am ready to begin one slope of the lid.

Ready for side three; this is the right-hand face on the axe picture above

A nice triangular block of wood

About two hours later, I had something that resembles a house. In fact, in German, the lid for this type of box is called a "Giebeldach Deckel" which means a gabled roof lid.

Carving out the inside

A lot is made of "dugout" chests when it comes to histories of medieval furniture. Generally the implication is that they were crude and primitive, and were made because it must have been simpler to do so than to make one from flat timbers. It is also usually implied that they were made in this way because the makers did not have the tools and or skills required to make one by any other method. Most histories of furniture were not, however, written by anyone who ever made anything themselves, and therefore the writer was just assuming things. Perhaps the mental image of neolithic man making objects by burning the insides and scraping away the ashes stuck too fast in their minds and they assumed the same method to have been employed by medieval artisans. I cannot speak for what was in the mind of the authors of such texts, but having made this "dugout" lid, (for that is exactly what it is), I can assure you that it is not 'easier' to make in this way. Well, perhaps the lid might be, because all of the acute angles would be difficult to get right and then it would be a big challenge to hold the pieces together whilst attaching them by any means of joinery. A square box, on the other hand, would be much harder to make in this method, and it requires just about every tool that one would need to make a box with cut timbers. It is more difficult to true up the sides to any degree of accuracy, in this way, for sure, and the time and energy it takes to carve all the waste material is staggering.

The finished inside (except that it was not, because I wound up changing
the angle - compare this with the first photo)

I mentioned the challenges of holding parts whilst trying to make them, and that is one of the  fundamental challenges of creating anything. In order to work something, one must have a way of holding it stationary or most of the effort will be wasted and the results will not look good. I just said that it is easier to carve out the inside of this lid than it would be to join together all the separate pieces, but it was much more difficult to hold the block of wood to be able to carve it out than it would have been to make flat pieces to join together. Either way, making a box with a lid in this shape is not "easy" and anyone who wanted to make an 'easy' box, would not have undertaken one of this form. 

Actually, working on this lid left me to ponder what method the medieval artist employed to hold the lid stationary whilst working on it. For sure, as I did, the ends had to remain square to the face in order to be able to hold it to chisel out the inside. This means they needed to have had some sort of vice or cramp large enough to do this. Most medieval illustrations depicting anyone carving anything, be it wood or stone, simply show the object laying on a table, but anyone who has carved anything knows that one must cramp or nail the work down in some manner before it can be carved. I have no idea how the medieval artist worked the tens of thousands of such boxes that must have been made in this form, but here is how I held mine.

Cutting off the ends

Once the inside was carved out, the lid could be turned over and the ends cut to the same angle as the sides. My cuts were accurate enough that it was not necessary to do any planing.

The cut off end, just as it came from the saw

With medieval (and later) workmanship, any work that would be concealed by further stages of work was not made any more perfect than it would need to be for the next stage. If this box were covered in gesso for painting, or covered in enamel or metal plates, there would be absolutely no reason to plane these very faint saw marks away. The same is true for the few worm holes in the wood; they will have no effect on the finished product and will not be visible.

Carving the moulding for the base

Scratch-stocks and moulding planes existed in some areas at some periods of the Middle Ages, but to what extent, it would be impossible to say; there simply is not enough surviving work to make any sort of assessment. A third method to make mouldings, which is still employed in Asia, where there is much more hand tool work still used in making furniture, is simply to carve it with gouges. This is the method I used to make the moulded edge to the base of the box. At some point, the box will get cast metal feet, but that is the very last stage of the project.

Snipe hinges

I opted for the simple snipe hinge, something that has been around for millennia.

The back view, showing the hinges. The base has a shoulder to it and the
thickness of it fits up inside the box; the nails are for securing it to the sides.

At this stage a modern person would be forgiven for thinking I am just about finished with the box, but in fact, from a medieval perspective, I have just begun. People of the medieval period liked things to be ornamented and decorated, and no one would have stood for anything so simple and unfinished as this. In the next blog-post we will examine many ways in which such a box could have been finished, and then I will show you how I intend to finish this one.

Step one; make a box. Step two; decorate said box...
to be continued

Another Project completed

This project has been going on for the past four months. I organised and designed it, but got other people to help me with the work.

My friend, Steffen, of Meisterbuilders Inc. Helped with the computer, rendering my design for the floor and fireplace, (I am no good at computer designing). He also made most of the wooden parts for me to use to build the mantle. My friend, Jon-Joseph, from Studio Russo did the marble fireplace surround, Alfonso and his crew did the floor, and my new friend, Edward, and his helper from Studio 33 worked with me to realise my vision for the walls and columns. In all, it was a big team effort, and I appreciate all the time that everyone put into it. This blog post is for them.

Lots of plaster and milk paint went into making walls and columns that are not just plain boring flat things with rolled on paint.

You Can Always Discover Something New

Last Weekend I finally made it to the Cloisters, part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. I have been wanting to go there for the 20 years I have been here in America, and had intended to go last August when I was at the MET, but realised there would not be enough time. It was a good thing I did not try, because it took me the entire day to see almost everything. They were shutting for the evening as I was making my way through the last gallery.

The Mérode Altarpiece in the Cloisters, New York

One of the highlights of the Cloisters, as far as artwork is concerned, is the Mérode Altarpiece. which was (probably) painted in the second half of the second decade of the 15th century, (1425-30) and is most often attributed to Robert Campin, though this is not a universally accepted fact. Sadly, the painting bears no artist's signature so we will probably never know, with absolute certainty, who painted it.

This pieces is important for those, like me, who have an interest in furniture and interiors from the medieval period, I have poured over pictures of it in books, for more than thirty years. Once pictures began to be available online, I studied more close-up pictures via this medium. There are remarkable details, and lifelike representation abound in this triptych, causing people to jump to the conclusion that it is a 'photo-representational' image of an actual interior. It is not.

This is still artwork, just as much as the Easter Island figures are, and it was made for much the same purpose; namely an artist giving expression to what he wished to convey to his audience by utilising his skills to the best of his ability. In fact, there are several details in the painting which demonstrate that it is not a photographic representation, as some details have been omitted or are not properly represented, such as the fact that the teeth on the saw are much too large for the scale of the other objects on the floor. If one were to take everything at face value in this image, the saw would be what is termed in modern tools as a 2.5TPI rip-saw, in other words, it has about 2 and 1/2 teeth for each inch (25mm) of length. This would be on a scale of a very heavy rip saw for large timbers, not a carpenters saw for cutting the sorts of things that he is seen working on.

Although this is not a representation of an actual setting, many of its details were obviously observed first-hand by the artist, and thus give us some valuable glimpses into 15th century life. One of the things that I was most interested in, was the towel bar on the back wall. This represents a very nicely carved and painted object. My interest in it is primarily because it clearly represents a glossy painted finish. Most people assume medieval paint to have been dull and flat, but this clearly shows a high gloss finish on this object.

Whilst the details to the carving and metalwork are very clear, the means
with which it is attached to the wall remains ambiguous.

My second new observation from a in-person study of this painting came in a happy observation of Saint Joseph's shoe. I have long suspected that respectable people's shoes would have been polished, but until last week, had no clear evidence for it. On studying this painting, however, one can see the clear representation of a well polished wax finish to his shoe. There are a surprising number of shoes from throughout the medieval period preserved in museums, but they are predictably in very shabby condition, and thus not an accurate representation of their original appearance. This detail in the Mérode Altarpiece gives us a wonderful glimpse of an early 15th century shoe in good condition.

A fine shine on a well formed pair of shoes
The shoe is inside a patten, which was a wooden sole one wore over their
shoes when going out of doors in poor weather or on bad streets; it was
intended to keep the mud off of of ones shoes

This is about the best condition one could hope to find of a medieval shoe,
but it was no match for the ravishes of the intervening 600+ years.
(late 14th century shoe on a special exhibit at the MET)

Lastly, as a tool enthusiast, I cannot pass up on mentioning the well used, but well cared-for condition of the handles of the tools pictured on St Joseph's workbench. These are tools which have been carefully crafted and well oiled with a soft glowing luster to them. I recognised the look at once, because many of my own tools have that same look. I am happy to see this, because most medieval tools one sees are too badly deteriorated to give any indication of their original finish and most modern reenactors leave their tools unfinished and raw, which gives a false impression of how they would have originally been. Tools were expensive, and people who owned them would have taken care of them; they were the means of their very existence.

Well made and well cared-for tools on the bench. Because the artist was not
a cabinetmaker, he failed to properly observe the bevels on a sharpened
chisel; to someone who sharpens and uses them almost daily, this has the
look of an un-sharpened chisel ("fishtail gouge" beneath the hammer)

Some of my own tools, with handles made by myself, save the antique cramp.
When one knows his business it is easy to spot those same details in a painting.

Videre Scire

Through the Eyes of a Medieval Artist

Some readers may recall the post I did on the end-panels of my 9th century box of about a year ago (plus a little). After I made them, I got the bright (or not) idea to make a mould from them so that I could cast plaster copies to sell at my shows. (Almost no one looked at them and no one bought any). I was intending to make 50 of each one, but only wound up making four of each. I am intending to give one to a fellow medieval enthusiast as a gift, but got another bright idea right before shipping it off.

The process began with a gilded plaster copy 

The idea was to decorate it with gold and paint to give the look of something that would combine medieval enamel work with illuminated book letters, which were often painted to look like enamel work. The purpose of this exercise is to show how bright and decorative medieval societies liked to have their possessions.

This blog shows the results, and a few pictures documenting the train of thought which transported me to this particular station.

The original carved wooden panel (not quite finished in this picture)

After gilding, I began mixing oil colours to give the look of enamel. The idea is that the light is able to penetrate the transparent medium and reflect off of the gold behind, just as with the glass which makes up enamel in the real pieces. Not all colours were transparent, however, so my white and yellow were mixed opaquely. It is not known how long the practice has continued, but since at least the 10th century people have been covering bright metal with pigments in oil, to give it a different colour. Theophilus mentions using saffron yellow to make tin look like gold, for example.

A beginning; to see how it would look. I liked it, but the colour is too thin and
looks like 15th century enamel, not 9th.

I chose the colour scheme from a late 9th century manuscript that I have been studying. Some version of nearly every colour was available in the middle ages, but not all colours were always used, or available to a given artist in a particular place at a specific period of time in history. Furthermore, a yellow which could have been available as a paint for a book may not have been available as a glass powder for making enamel, or vice versa. Even though I chose the colour scheme (two different greens, violet, white, yellow, and "red") from this manuscript, I consulted my files of  early medieval enamel work for the actual glass colours used.

Two colours of green, (most of the darker one has faded but you can still
see some of it in the segments of the letter) violet, white, red, and yellow.
The yellow has faded to almost white, except for in the top right-hand corner.
perhaps a different pigment was used in this spot? This letter (part of a 'B'
was painted to look like the enamel work of its day.
(from St Gall Library, Cod. Sang. 22, ca 880-900)

Not all colours, as they were originally used, had the same appearance as they do now. Reds and yellows were especially susceptible to fading, but depending on the pigment or dye used, any colour could fade or have a chemical reaction of one sort or another which might completely alter its original appearance. (for example, silver gilding in books has almost always turned black) Sometimes, however, artists were able to get good quality materials that have stood up very well to the ravages of time, allowing us to glimpse things as they were at the time of the artists' creation.

This manuscript still retains its vivid reds, blues and yellows.
A manuscript now in the J. Paul Getty Museum, orignally
created in Montecassino, Italy in 1153.
This is an example of a manuscript illumination imitating
contemporary enamel work as well. 

On my recent European trip, I visited the Minden Cathedral Treasury, in Germany, and took this photo of an early 11th century reliquary which has a 9th century enamel medallion in its centre front panel. The entire object is quite small and the lighting in the room made it difficult to get a good clean photo. I had to rely on a picture from a book for a close up detail of the enamel.

This enamel plaque has the dark green (not clearly discernible) red, yellow,
 white and violet (though it looks sort of
blackish in this picture) but not the light green.

I was able to get one close-up picture of this medallion which clearly shows the colours, but unfortunately, it is blurred, so that is about all one can see. (I have no idea why I did not take more than one close-up, to guard against that problem as I usually do.) Below is another object, (also taken from a picture in a book) of another enameled object showing more variety within the same basic colour group. This object is on display in the Vatican.

Multi-coloured enamel and gold reliquary box,
here one clearly sees the bright opaque yellow

This was the sort of look I wanted to give to my panel, and I believe it is very much in keeping with the manner in which it might have been ornamented in the 9th century. For the most part, modern taste would prefer the undecorated version, but a medieval artist would have seen it as unfinished business.

The finished piece, now I have no more excuses for not posting it off
There is silver leaf on the bosses of the vines.

Johann International Monogram used to sign all original creations

Do not ask how many hours it took to get to this point because I do not know, nor would I tell if I did.