Description:
One of pair of painted wooden silent companions or dummy boards - this one of Queen Elizabeth I in court dress. Dummy boards were painted on flat boards, and designed to stand in dimly lit rooms. These could be whimsical and deceptive amusements in the Netherlands, England, and the American colonies in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Made from a slow-growing ring-porus hardwood, possibly ash or chestnut. In French these items were known as chantourne, or cut-outs.
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+58.174A |
