Skip to main content

Iron

LS 1968

Date : 1635 | Medium : wrought iron, cut, engraved and ivory inlaid with metal and enhanced with colours

This iron, which used embers for heat, is lavishly dedicated and decorated in honour of its owner. The decor features deer hunting scenes on both sides and its heel is crowned with the lady’s coat of arms, plus a travel scene featuring a fairy-tale carriage, drawn by two horses. Might this not be the journey made by the lady herself, leaving the Grand Duchy of Hesse for the nearby Rhineland? Could this beautiful iron be part of the lady’s trousseau in preparation for her marriage ? Or a wedding gift given in 1635 to the bride, featuring a reminder of her birth in Hesse? As was de rigueur in the high society of the time in these German regions neighbouring France, the language is French.