Dendrochronological analysis of an English chest: contributing to knowledge about wood supply and chest production in 16th century England

Historic furniture has a great ethnographic and historical value, as styles and designs responded to specific uses, fashion trends and the social status of the buyer or the commissioner. Placing it in an exact chronological and geographical production context increases our knowledge about preferences for materials, designs, and woodworking practices for household commodities. Here we present the results of non-invasive dendrochronological research carried out on an English chest from a private collection. The chest is of a hybrid construction, with boarded sides and back, and a joined front with four carved linenfold panels. It had been described as made of Baltic oak and dating to the mid-16th century, a crucial transition period for which only a few early chests have been analysed. Our results demonstrate, however, that the wood from the lid, side boards and back originates from the south of England. Heartwood/sapwood border in the left side board has allowed an estimated felling date for the tree of between 1520 and 1552. Terminus post quem dates of the rest of the elements pre-dating this interval indicate that the chest was likely made in the second quarter of the 16th century, as initially described. Three linenfold panels show typical features of Baltic wood, whereas the fourth one has different characteristics and could have been made with English oak, but the lack of access to the tree-ring patterns hampers verifying this hypothesis. Mixture of provenances suggests a production workshop in London, although other town in the south with a major timber market cannot be discarded. The construction features are described, and two distinct marks found in the chest are discussed in the regional context of its production. To allow the compilation and inventory of such marks, the ‘Marks on Wood’ community has been created in Zenodo and is presented here

Dendrochronological analysis of an English chest: Contributing to knowledge about wood supply and chest production in 16th century England

Historic furniture has a great ethnographic and historical value, as styles and designs responded to specific uses, fashion trends and the social status of the buyer or the commissioner. Placing it in an exact chronological and geographical production context increases our knowledge about preferences for materials, designs, and woodworking practices for household commodities. Here we present the results of non-invasive dendrochronological research carried out on an English chest from a private collection. The chest is of a hybrid construction, with boarded sides and back, and a joined front with four carved linenfold panels. It had been described as made of Baltic oak and dating to the mid-16th century, a crucial transition period for which only a few early chests have been analysed. Our results demonstrate, however, that the wood from the lid, side boards and back originates from the south of England. Heartwood/sapwood border in the left side board has allowed an estimated felling date for the tree of between 1520 and 1552. Terminus post quem dates of the rest of the elements pre-dating this interval indicate that the chest was likely made in the second quarter of the 16th century, as initially described. Three linenfold panels show typical features of Baltic wood, whereas the fourth one has different characteristics and could have been made with English oak, but the lack of access to the tree-ring patterns hampers verifying this hypothesis. Mixture of provenances suggests a production workshop in London, although other town in the south with a major timber market cannot be discarded. The construction features are described, and two distinct marks found in the chest are discussed in the regional context of its production. To allow the compilation and inventory of such marks, the ‘Marks on Wood’ community has been created in Zenodo and is presented here

Blue is the fashion in Mediterranean pines: New drought signals from tree-ring density in southern Europe

Identificador de proyecto: Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 101029581Long-term records of tree-ring width (TRW), latewood maximum density (MXD) and blue intensity (BI) measurements on conifers have been largely used to develop high-resolution temperature reconstructions in cool temperate forests. However, the potential of latewood blue intensity (LWBI), less commonly used earlywood blue intensity (EWBI), and delta (difference between EWBI and LWBI, dBI) blue intensity in Mediterranean tree species is still unexplored. Here we developed BI chronologies in moist-elevation limits of the most southwestern European distribution of Pinus nigra subsp. salzmanii Arnold. We tested whether BI variables derived from tree rings of black pine are better proxies than ring-width variables to reconstruct long-term changes in climatic factors and water availability. For this we applied correlations and regression analyses with daily and monthly climate data, a spatial and temporal drought index (Standardized Precipitation-Evapotranspiration Index-SPEI) and Vapour Pressure Deficit (VPD), as well as atmospheric circulation patterns: North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) and Western Mediterranean Oscillation (WeMO). We found a positive relation between black pine growth (RW) and temperature during the winter preceding the growing season. Among all variables LWBI and dBI were found to be more sensitive than TRW to SPEI at low-elevation site, with EWBI series containing an opposite climatic signal. LWBI and dBI were significantly related to June and September precipitation at high-elevation site. Winter VPD was related with higher EWI and LWI series, whereas dBI and EWBI were related with January SOI and February NAO. We confirm the potential of long-term dBI series to reconstruct climate in drought-prone regions. This novel study in combination with other wood anatomical measurements has wide implications for further use of BI to understand and reconstruct environmental changes in Mediterranean conifer forests.Wageningen University & ResearchUniversidade de Santiago de CompostelaUniversity of Amsterda

The age of black pine (Pinus nigra Arn. ssp. salzmannii (Dunal) Franco) mother trees has no effect on seed germination and on offspring seedling performance

Key message: We sampled Pinus nigra cones in 29 trees in an age range of 90 to 725 years. The mother tree age did not significantly influence the pinecone or pine seed size, seed germination capacity, or plant size or vigor displayed during the first year of growth in the nursery. Context: Pinus nigra Arn. ssp. salzmannii is a long-lived Mediterranean species, with millenary trees residing in an old-growth forest in the Cazorla Mountain Range in SE Spain which is home to the oldest known trees in the Iberian Peninsula. Aims: This study aimed to assess how the mother tree age in Pinus nigra influences seed viability, germination capacity, and the seedling survival and growth during the first year under nursery conditions. Methods: Twenty-nine trees aged 90 to 725 years were selected and 60 cones were harvested per tree to study the cone characteristics (size and weight), seed viability, and germination capacity in relation to the mother tree age. Eighty germinated seeds per tree were transferred to the nursery and seedling survival and growth were measured after the first growing season. Results: Significant between-tree differences were detected for cone characteristics (cone and seed weight, number of seeds per cone), as well as for germination capacity. Notably, however, the mother tree age did not significantly influence the aforementioned parameters. Conclusion: Forest management and regeneration practices of Pinus nigra should take into account that trees of this species up to at least 725 years old produce seeds with a fairly high reproductive capacity.The dendrochronological fieldwork of this research was funded by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO-number 236-61-001) and National Geographic Society (Waitts Grant W 329-14). The University of Huelva, Spain, provided the lab and nursery with the needed material to perform the experiment

Dating and provenancing the <i>Woman with lantern</i> sculpture – A contribution towards attribution of Netherlandish art

Studying the wood of art objects such as sculptures, panel paintings and furniture can be crucial to elucidate their chronology and production centre. Here we present an approach that considers the provenance of the wood and its potential availability in different areas as a means to identify the provenance of wooden art objects. We illustrate this approach with an interdisciplinary study aimed to determine the date and provenance of the Woman with lantern, a carved altar fragment from the Rijksmuseum's collections (Amsterdam, The Netherlands). The origin of this object is undocumented, but based on stylistic and iconographic features its provenance was proposed to be the altarpiece of Rennes cathedral (France), carved in Antwerp (Belgium) around 1520 C.E. However, doubts arose when curators tested the potential fit of the sculpture in that altarpiece and could not find a neat match. Dating and provenancing the wood of the sculpture by standard dendrochronological means failed to produce a date, and comparison of the tree-ring pattern from the sculpture with those of the sculptures from Rennes altarpiece delivered no results either, supporting the suspicion that the Woman with lantern belonged elsewhere. In 2019, X-ray computed tomography (CT) provided digital cross-sections throughout the sculpture and a longer tree-ring series was obtained. This time, the outermost ring was dated to the year 1487 C.E. The tree was estimated to have been cut after 1495 C.E., indicating a likely production in the first quarter of the 16th century. The origin of the timber in the eastern Netherlands/northwest Germany, combined with empirical evidence about timber availability in various regions of the Low Countries at that time, suggests that the sculpture was made in a workshop located north of the Rhine in the (current) Netherlands, rather than Antwerp. This research has led to the hypothesis that workshops north and south of the Rhine river branches in the Low Countries were supplied by forests located in different areas. If proven correct, establishing the wood provenance will assist in determining the origin of Netherlandish works of art from the late-Gothic and Northern Renaissance periods