mystery object...competition!

[chapel]

Hi Folks,
Thought i'd share this interesting little thing with you.
Anyone out there have any idea what it is?

Paul

 

[chapel]

here's another pic!

 

[Jill]

Have you got a picture of the other side? My first guess by the shape would be a firescreen, but only as the shape reminds me of one that my great grandma had, but that had an embroidered insert, not doors.

 

[chapel]

Here's you go.
Yes, the shape is very similar to those fire screens - usually they have a solid panel, which is sometimes glazed/embroidered
Paul

 

[Carol]

Does it have an ecclesiastical connection? It looks a litle like the front of the box thing in which they store the reserve communion materials. This has a name but it escapes me and acolyte/server trained son is out and about.

 

[Gareth Hughes]

Tabernacle (if freestanding) or aumbry (if set into a wall).
Though the decoration (if it hasn't been picked up in the Middle or Far East sometime since 1800) suggests a late 16th or 17th century date, when Reservation of the Host would have been, to say the least, an uncommon practice in England.
Cat flap?

 

[robgil]

looks like it had a pad lock on it , was it set into a wall? is it a window?

 

[fjpdesigns]

Definitely looks eastern to me. Rather unBritish type carved decoration.

 

[JoceAndChris]

Fascinating! I agree with the above post - I saw very similar things on sale in a little shop in Muswell Hill which specialised in selling Far Eastern antique artefacts.

It looks religious though - the little doors behind which there's a shrine and a little statue of Ganesha, for example?

I might be completely wrong though!

 

[JohnB]

Is it a screen for hiding a period TV set, with doors so you don't have to move it?

 

[CatherineB]

It looks to me like something that's been made more recently, out of pieces of carved wood recovered from an older & larger item(s).

So I'm leaning towards JohnB's very period suggestion of a screen for hiding your TV!

 

[Penners]

Chapel - ignore all the rubbish above. I have the definitive answer(s).

This is clearly a medieval mailbox.

Or a printing block for a Hallmark greetings card.

Or Henry VIII's safe.

Why do I give this solid gold information away for free?

 

[chapel]

These are all good answers, but i'm afraid i may have misled you...

A competition would suggest that:

a) I know the answer...
b) There is a prize...

 

[CatherineB]

Well if you don't know the answer, and there's no prize, then it can be anything we want it to be!

If it's big enough (and I'm not convinced it is, but there's nothing to show scale), I would go for - the door on my new drinks cabinet :wink:

 

[chuckey]

Five different styles of carving including the top bit which is not finished. Really old pintle style hinges. Looks to be of the same ilk as a built in cupboard I had, basically the front of a Tudor sideboard, cut in half with the two halves re-assembled one on top to the other ( one inverted) and let into the wall to form a wet and dirty cupboard.
Frank

 

[Gervase]

I reckon South India, and made within the last 15 years.

 

[Penners]

Party-pooper...

 

[chapel]

I dont wish to fan the flames here but i've just found some writing on the back in ink, it's difficult to make out for sure but it makes me think its from Italy and 'fair Verona' in particular.

It reads simply 'What's in a name?'

 

[CatherineB]

Funniest looking balcony I've ever seen...