Folding mechanism (furniture ornament)

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When we talk about folding on historical furniture, we mean an ornamental shape for filling the surface, which is reminiscent of folded and re-rolled paper.

history

Around 1400 people in Central Europe began to construct furniture, doors and paneling from frames and panels. This saved material and the wood could "work", that is, to expand or contract slightly depending on the climatic conditions. A little later, with the folded work, an ornament related technically and formally to the field division was created. It was probably developed in Flanders in the early 15th century. The oldest pictorial representation is a cupboard on the miniature book of the birth of John the Baptist in the Très Belles Heures de Notre-Dame by Jan van Eyck , around 1422-1424. From there it spread to all artistic landscapes in which oak wood was preferably processed, which suits this handicraft technique, i.e. the Netherlands, Northern Germany, Scandinavia, England and France. In southern Germany, Italy or Spain it only plays a very minor role. The heyday of this type of decoration was the late Gothic , but it obviously still corresponded to the sense of form of the Renaissance , and examples can be found even from the 17th century. In the post-medieval folded motifs a tendency towards multilayered "paper layers" and richer notch decorations can be seen. Folded panels of historicism were again based on the late Gothic models.

technology

The folding mechanism owes its great popularity and widespread use to its relatively effective and schematic production method: with certain profile planes and carving knives, even a less skilful carpenter was able to work out the ornament of grooves , bulges and ridges running in the direction of the wood fiber so that the impression of multiple Rolls of paper or parchment folded in parallel emerged. A picture carver did not have to be called in. This was very much in keeping with the jealously observed distribution of tasks at the time the guilds were developing . The motifs never touch the frame because the filling sits loosely in a narrow groove with all four chamfered sides .

literature

  • Georg Himmeluchter, Faltwerk, in: Reallexikon zur Deutschen Kunstgeschichte, Vol. VI (1974), Sp. 1422–1425; also digital in the RDK laboratory

  • Oldest pictorial reproduction of folded panels, illumination around 1420

  • Late Gothic paneling in the church of Semur en Auxois. Illustration by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc

  • Filling from a chest front wall. Oak, Bremen, 17th century ( Focke Museum )