Late 17th Century English Brass-Studded Leather Dome-Top Coffer / Trunk

A handsome and honest survivor of the Stuart coffer-maker’s craft: a late 17th-century hide-covered travelling trunk of the kind that accompanied English households by coach and cart in the decades after the Restoration. The softly domed lid is laid out in close-set brass nails, with a ruled border and a great studded ring centred on the initial ‘C’. That initial is the mark of an owner whose name has long since slipped from the record, but whose claim on the trunk still reads plainly more than three centuries on.

The construction is typical of the London coffer-makers, the trade associated with makers such as Richard Pigge. Leather is stretched over a nailed wooden carcass and dressed with lines of studwork, which both decorate the trunk and fix the hide. Wrought-iron straps run over the lid and down the front and back to strengthen the joints. Iron carrying handles at each end recall the trunk’s working life on coach roofs and in baggage carts. The interior was relined in the 19th century with a patterned paper and bears a London retailer’s label, evidence that the trunk was valued, refurbished and kept in use long after it was made.

At a modest twenty-seven inches wide, it suits places a full-sized coffer would not: the foot of a bed, a hallway or landing, or a library table-end. It brings genuine 17th-century age and the dark, worn hide that collectors of early interiors prize to a period house or a pared-back contemporary room.

Provenance – England. Late 17th Century.

Material – Leather (hide) over a nailed wooden carcass, brass studwork, wrought-iron strapwork, hinges and side carrying handles; later 19th-century paper lining with London retailer’s label.

Condition – Please refer to the images. There are losses to the leather and areas of old heat damage. General wear, rubbing and surface oxidation to the ironwork are consistent with age and use. The interior paper lining is a later 19th-century replacement. A further detailed condition report is available on request.

Dimensions – 13½ in high × 27½ in wide × 17 in deep (34 × 70 × 43 cm)