|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The lid carries a depiction of a rural foundry in the Forest of Dean where iron ore was smelted. Smelting iron and making charcoal were the main activities of the inhabitants of this part of Gloucestershire. The building shown is probably the smithy at Flaxley which was founded by Cistercian monks as early as 1154. On the left side of the composition we see two stacks of wood that was burned in a controlled manner to produce charcoal. Tellingly in the last decades of the 19th century, when Sentimentalism was on the rise, functioning smithies or charcoal-burning yards became popular adornments of parks first in Europe and then in Russia too. In the autumn of 1786, for example, a Charbonière (charcoal-burner's cottage) appeared at Pavlovsk outside St Petersburg. |
||||||
Copyright © 2006 State Hermitage Museum |
