Offered by Kollenburg Antiquairs
REQUEST INFORMATION
Specialised in 18th century furniture & decorative arts
A horizontally oriented overdoor, known in French as a dessus-de-porte. The scene consists of four putti that appear to be hard at work with attributes that refer to early autumn and the harvest. One of the youths carries a sheaf of grains, two are busying themselves with a sack full of grain and a vine branch with ripe grapes, and in the foreground on the left, the fourth holds a wreath of early autumn flowers. A jug of wine with a vine branch hangs in a tree behind them.
An overdoor is an artwork installed above a door or portal - usually a painting, but it can also be a relief in stucco or wood, or a tapestry. Such room decorations were primarily installed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, in the homes of particularly affluent families, castles, and buildings with a public function, such as town halls. The iconography of such pieces often revealed something about the function of the room in which they were displayed, or about the owners of the home. As such, common iconographic themes include wine, food and drink, wealth and power, or specific family references.
With its references to the harvest and wine, the overdoor shown here may have been part of a quadriptych about the four seasons; it could also have originally hung in a dining room, serving as a reference to abundance and wealth.
