Antique Wedding Wardrobe

Antique oak wardrobe pegged, aerogomé and patiné à l'ancienne inside and outside greige color. This Wardrobe is in beautiful condition, its feet are straight and it is richly carved with friezes, flowers, scrolls etc...magnificent cornice with its original key. The wedding wardrobe was in the 19th century symbol of Prosperity. It was not only a storage piece of furniture, it also held money, jewelry, notarial deeds etc...Its manufacture resulted from a long ceremony, from the birth of a girl to her marriage. The first phase begins when she is a baby. The father chooses the oak which will be felled and cut either between Christmas and New Year's Day, when the sap is at rest, or later at the rising sap and necessarily at the full moon whose action tightens the fibers of the wood. The boards are stored and dried for about ten years. The second phase takes place at the time of the girl's solemn communion, the boards are then split with an axe along the grain and then dried until the marriage proposal. The piece of furniture is then assembled according to the dimensions determined by the father. The third phase is the choice and creation of the decoration that will give the cabinet its material and symbolic value. For example, a farmer father will have sculptures of sheaves and ears of wheat made, while one who cultivates fruit trees will choose baskets of fruit. The extreme care taken with the sculptures that adorn its facade makes it special. The more abundant they are, the more the donor asserts his financial power. The central motif that adorns the cornice is the most ornate. Baskets of fruit, flower baskets, and doves' nests stand out, in deep relief, from the other decorative motifs. But the main "theme" of the wedding wardrobe is copiously surrounded by classical attributes (shells, foliage, pearls, ribbons...), and Norman elements: oak or laurel leaves, sheaves of flowers, bunches of grapes...