Two-door dresser with flamboyant Gothic decoration
Walnut, iron
15th century
Musée des Beaux-arts, Angers
Inv No. 2003.1.301
The dresser was an iconic piece of furniture in the late Middle Ages. It was used to display precious tableware in an ostentatious manner and show off its owner’s wealth. This was a time when princes and the powerful made a distinction between so-called everyday tableware (which was no less precious) and ceremonial tableware. The latter was only for displaying to the public and would never actually be used.
The dresser displayed in this exhibition is in walnut, which was highly sought-after for furniture in the Middle Ages. Queen Marie of Anjou, for example, ordered several pieces in walnut for her bedroom.
The upper part of the dresser is opened via two doors at the back through which the tableware was entered. The two drawers (“sliding drawers”), which were located under the doors, have disappeared. The lower part of the dresser could also be used to exhibit dishes, ewers and other items.
Just like the table, which could be set in any room of the house or palace for meals, the dresser could also be placed in the various rooms or halls. It was also used by noble women to display their jars, bottles and cups when people came to visit them after giving birth.
When exhibiting tableware during a banquet, a white linen tablecloth would cover the top of the dresser which would also be fitted with wooden steps known as gradins or degrés. Their number and the height depended on the power of the master of the house! During the Middle Ages, five steps indicated the host was of royal rank; three, a count; two or just one, a knight. A golden age of excess for these ceremonial buffets came during the Renaissance. Oversized and overloaded with pieces of gold and silverware, they were sometimes fitted with complex mechanisms that allowed them to be lowered from the ceiling to the floor as guests looked on, amazed.