This carved door and stairway exemplify the fine craftsmanship lavished on domestic architecture in the late Middle Ages. The carver has borrowed motifs, such as the slender openwork arches, from Gothic church architecture to achieve an exceptionally delicate ornamental effect. A photograph of 1887 shows the woodwork in its original setting on Abbeville’s "Street of the Tannery." Still today, street names in Europe often derive from the profession of a city’s medieval residents.
The figures in the archway and the iron knocker, although contemporary, were added later.
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Title:Doorway and Staircase Enclosure
Date:late 15th or early 16th century
Geography:Made in Picardy, France
Culture:French
Medium:Oak
Dimensions:10 ft. 5 1/2 in. × 14 ft. 9 in. × 72 in. (318.8 × 449.6 × 182.9 cm)
Classification:Woodwork-Architectural
Credit Line:Frederick C. Hewitt Fund, 1913
Accession Number:13.138.1
From the courtyard at 29 rue de la Tannerie, Abbeville; [ Henri Daguerre, Paris (sold 1913)]
New York. The Cloisters, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Rich Man, Poor Man: Art, Class, and Commerce in a Late Medieval Town," March 6, 2023–February 4, 2024.
Taylor, Isidore-Justin-Sévérin, Charles Nodier, and Achille Alexandre Alphonse de Cailleux. Voyages Pittoresques et Romantiques dans l'Ancienne France. Paris, 1820-1878.
Bonnaffé, Edmond. Le meuble en France au XVIe siècle: ouvrage orné de cent vingt dessins. Paris: Librairie de l'Art, 1887. p. 41.
Havard, Henry. Dictionnaire de l'ameublement et de la décoration depuis le XIIIe siècle jusqu'à nos jours. Vol. 4. Paris: Maison Quantin, 1887–1890. pl. 62.
Macqueron, Henri. "Abbeville et ses environs. Guide Archéologique pour les excursions du Congrès de 1893." Bulletin Monumental 58 (1893). p. 92.
de Marsy, Arthur. "Le Congrès archéologique de France (LXe session) (suite)." Bulletin Monumental 58 (1893). pp. 254–55.
Vitry, Paul, and Gaston Brière. Documents de Sculpture Française. Paris: Ateliers photo-mécaniques D. A. Longuet, 1904. pl. LII, no. 5, p. 14.
Carlier, Achille. "Ils Ont Emporté D’Abbeville L’Escalier dit "De François Ier." Les Pierres de France 2 (1938). pp. 22–25, fig. 19–20, 22.
Rorimer, James J., and Margaret B. Freeman. The Cloisters: The Building and the Collection of Mediaeval Art, in Fort Tryon Park. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1938. pp. 68–9, fig. 39.
Lief, Zola. "The Cloisters." The Compleat Collector 3, no. 7 (May 1943). p. 4.
Rorimer, James J. The Cloisters: The Building and the Collection of Medieval Art in Fort Tryon Park. 3rd revised ed. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1963. pp. 126–7, fig. 60.
Rorimer, James J. Medieval Monuments at The Cloisters: As They Were and As They Are, edited by Katherine Serrell Rorimer. Revised ed. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1972. pp. 76–79, fig. 96–100.
Young, Bonnie. A Walk Through The Cloisters. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1979. pp. 102–3.
Young, Bonnie. A Walk Through The Cloisters. 5th ed. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1988. p. 102.
Fligny, Laurence. Le mobilier en Picardie: 1200-1700. Paris: Picard, 1990. pp. 64, 68–69, 72–73, fig. 50, 75.
Béguerie-De Paepe, Pantxika. "Les sculpteurs à Abbeville à la fin du XVe et au début du XVIe siècle." In La sculpture picarde à Abbeville vers 1500: Autour du retable de Thuison, edited by Pantxika Béguerie-De Paepe. Tournai: La Renaissance du Livre, 2001. pp. 20–21, fig. 3.
Barnet, Peter, and Nancy Y. Wu. The Cloisters: Medieval Art and Architecture. New York and New Haven: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2005. no. 110, pp. 152–53, 198.
Effros, Bonnie. "Art of the ‘Dark Ages’: Showing Merovingian artefacts in North American public and private collections,." Journal of the History of Collections 17, no. 1 (2005). p. 90, fig. 3.
Barnet, Peter, and Nancy Y. Wu. The Cloisters: Medieval Art and Architecture. 75th Anniversary ed. New York and New Haven: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2012. pp. 160–61.
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