French Country · Encyclopedia · Fire and Light
Wedding trammel
A rare seventeenth-century trammel made for the hearth of a newly married couple. A double heart symbolizes their union, a rooster above it stands for virility, and surrounding spirals express the wish for a fertile life.
French: crémaillère de mariage · 17th century · wrought iron
At a glance
- Period: seventeenth century
- Material: wrought iron, cut and forged
- Symbols: double heart, rooster, spirals
- Rarity: one of the most important pieces for a young couple's hearth
What it is
The book calls this trammel one of the most important pieces made for the hearth of a young couple. The smith cut a double heart into the iron, set a rooster above it and surrounded the main motif with spirals.
In folk art, the book explains, the heart symbolizes union, the rooster virility and the spirals a life one hopes will be fertile.
Heart motifs at the hearth
Many iron utensils of the hearth carry a symbolic heart: candle holders, gridirons, ash shovels and trammels. Village smiths, the book says, were also art craftsmen, and they put meaning into the objects that sat at the center of family life.
Collecting and displaying it
Elaborate trammels attract reproductions. Compare the wear on moving parts with the overall surface and look for real forging marks rather than cast or laser-cut edges.
Displayed over the fireplace or on a wall, a wedding trammel is a striking and meaningful object for a family home.
Source: Les Trésors de France: vieux métiers et objets d'autrefois (Éditions Rustica, Détours en France collection, 1995), pp. 116–121, with general background on the object. The book was published in 1995, so workshops, people and figures are described as they were then. Regional names and dates are given as the book records them; a style or a region of origin does not by itself date an individual piece.