Antique “Saxon” Marriage Chest With Folk Painting

To say where this antique pine marriage box comes from could spark an online debate, it is from Transylvania, and typical of the painted furniture of the so-called Saxon people who lived there during the 19th century, they had come with the Teutonic Knights, invited in the 12th century to settle & take arms if necessary, a bulwark to the Eastern Infidel, their marriage trunks like this show Renaissance influence, during the later 19th century when Nationalism was in vogue & after the emancipation of the serfs, how you painted your furniture, and yr sunday dress, was all important, these folk expressions defined your tribe & ethnicity. In this piece, which is interesting, we see rather as folk music absorbs other influences, a nod to other traditions, Transylvania was a multi-ethnic principality or realm under the rule of the Magyars then the Austrian, & just north of the Saxon Lands were the Szekely, a Hungarian peoples, and the tulip flower on this piece acknowledges their painted furnitiure, the row or arcade of semi-circlular geometric forms along the bottom of this piece might also be a reference to the abstract scroll carved dowry chests or arcs of the Vlach shepherds who were the largest of the three main ethnic groups in this region.

This is a very good condition piece, nice size, clean to interior.

Transylvania mid to late 19th cent

H: 60cm (23.6in)
W: 121cm (47.6in)
D: 50cm (19.7in)