This question was closed without grading. Reason: Answer found elsewhere
Jul 31, 2018 10:53
5 yrs ago
4 viewers *
French term
Coffret à estampe
French to English
Art/Literary
Art, Arts & Crafts, Painting
Description of painting
Hello all,
This comes from material for an art gallery and is describing a 16th century painting. As far as I can gather a coffret à estampe is a casket with an engraving inside the lid, while a coffre de message is a messenger casket I think. I haven't been able to find a translation for coffret à estampe other than box/casket with engraving, if anyone knows of a more precise term I would be very grateful.
Paysage avec le Repos pendant la fuite en Egypte, un coffret à estampe/coffre de message à droite
This comes from material for an art gallery and is describing a 16th century painting. As far as I can gather a coffret à estampe is a casket with an engraving inside the lid, while a coffre de message is a messenger casket I think. I haven't been able to find a translation for coffret à estampe other than box/casket with engraving, if anyone knows of a more precise term I would be very grateful.
Paysage avec le Repos pendant la fuite en Egypte, un coffret à estampe/coffre de message à droite
Proposed translations
(English)
4 +1 | missal box / messenger box / coffret à l’estampe |
Helen Shiner
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Proposed translations
+1
44 mins
missal box / messenger box / coffret à l’estampe
This article explains that these are the usual translations, but where a purpose is unknown, they retain the French term: http://artinprint.org/article/when-assemblage-makes-sense-an...
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Note added at 46 mins (2018-07-31 11:40:04 GMT)
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Apologies, coffret à estampe.
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Note added at 56 mins (2018-07-31 11:50:25 GMT)
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I think, if you need to be precise, I would translate it as a missal box with woodcut (or whatever) to inside of cover/lid, maybe in brackets after retaining the French term.
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Note added at 186 days (2019-02-03 00:29:47 GMT)
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Hi Anne, I note you closed this without grading. What did you use in the end? It would be nice to know since we did make quite an effort to try to help you.
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Note added at 46 mins (2018-07-31 11:40:04 GMT)
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Apologies, coffret à estampe.
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Note added at 56 mins (2018-07-31 11:50:25 GMT)
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I think, if you need to be precise, I would translate it as a missal box with woodcut (or whatever) to inside of cover/lid, maybe in brackets after retaining the French term.
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Note added at 186 days (2019-02-03 00:29:47 GMT)
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Hi Anne, I note you closed this without grading. What did you use in the end? It would be nice to know since we did make quite an effort to try to help you.
Peer comment(s):
agree |
Charles Davis
: I think the best option is to retain the French term and add an explanatory translation in parentheses. // True. At all events, I think the important thing is to mention the print, because there are plenty of missal boxes without them.
33 mins
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Thanks, Charles. I agree, though the term ‘missal box’ is widely used as a type of box (the purpose of which is also not known). Check the many images on Google./Yes, as I suggested.
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Discussion
I in turn got my artistic wires crossed: the Flight into Egypt mentioned is indeed a painting and the coffret is depicted in it. Sorry!
Sad, really, when the sum total of my OT religious knowledge is summed up in one song from Boney-M! :)
Many of these early prints (not a painting in this case) are undocumented and the artist is usually impossible to identify unless they are monogrammed.
There we sat down..." — presumably to rest? Though I'm a little geographically challenged as to quite why it was necessary to pass via Babylon to get from Egypt to Judæa — but I guess I'm just misisng something...
http://www.themagazineantiques.com/article/late-gothic-coffe...
http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/artwork/193362
"Suzanne Karr Schmidt, Altered and Adorned, Using Renaissance Prints in Daily Life, The Art Institute of Chicago & Yale University Press, 2011, p. 59: « Approximately one hundred such ornamented boxes are known, but their purpose and even their intended users remain uncertain. (...) The variety of names given the genre since the early 1900s reveals this confusion, with some labels highlighting their proposed roles as messenger or dispatch boxes, alms or offering boxes, book or missal boxes, and others more descriptive of their hybrid nature (coffrets à estampe or Kassetten-Holzschnitten)."
http://www.pba-auctions.com/html/fiche.jsp?id=2213739
It seems clear that nobody actually knows what these boxes or small coffers were for, so although there are references to them as "missal boxes" this is a supposition, and personally I don't think that term should be used because we can't be sure it is accurate. The article Helen has cited uses the term "print box" at one point, but I would be a bit reluctant to use that on its own. I think it would be best to use the French term with some kind of explanatory translation in parentheses, possibly just "print box" but preferably perhaps something like "box/coffer with woodcut/print inside lid".