French Country · Encyclopedia · Wrought-Iron Tools
Chest keys
Large seventeenth-century chest keys whose bows are cut into symbols: rings around a heart, rings and wings, and two birds facing each other above the rings, all images of union.
French: clefs de coffre · 17th century · wrought iron
At a glance
- Period: seventeenth century
- Material: wrought iron
- Use: locking chests and coffers
- Symbols: rings, heart, wings, paired birds
What they are
Chests held a family's most precious belongings: linen, papers, money and the bride's trousseau. Their keys were made large and solid, and smiths often decorated the bow, the part held in the hand.
The book shows three: one with rings around a heart, one with rings and wings, and one with two birds facing each other above the rings.
Reading the symbols
The book insists that, when one knows how to look, everything in old everyday objects is a symbol. Interlaced rings and paired birds speak of marriage and union, fitting for keys to the chest that often held the dowry.
Collecting and displaying them
Look for keys whose wards, the cut part of the bit, are intact and whose bows show hand cutting and filing. Large decorated keys are often reproduced.
Hung on a board or laid in a tray, a few old keys make a small collection with a big story.
Source: Les Trésors de France: vieux métiers et objets d'autrefois (Éditions Rustica, Détours en France collection, 1995), pp. 120–123, 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.