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COLLECTION

Vargueño

Cherished 17th century collector’s item

by Marie Becuwe

One of the highlights of our exhibition The Desk (which runs until 22 August) is undoubtedly the vargueño, an early 17th century Spanish writing desk. Before it joined our collection in 1914, it was owned by at least two 19th century collectors and may previously have been used in a court building.

Escritorio de Salamanca

The vargueño, originally referred to as an ‘escritorio de Salamanca’, consists in this instance of two stacked wooden trunks, with the folding front panel of the top trunk serving as a writing desk. The interior is finished in the Spanish Mudéjar style, which combines Christian and Islamic influences. Gilded wood carving and ivory inlays decorate the many drawers and cupboard doors, which are arranged to look like the facade of a baroque building.

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The vargueño in the Musée Singher, ca. 1900-1910 © Ville du Mans, collection Adolphe Singher

The vargueño is one of the most characteristic types of furniture from the Spanish Renaissance and Baroque periods. From Castile, this type of furniture became popular throughout the Iberian Peninsula in the course of the 16th century. The sought-after item of furniture was mainly used by the bourgeoisie and lower nobility as a ‘travelling desk’. Wrought-iron handles made the chests fairly easy to move. Vargueños were often found in the offices of businessmen and notaries. Conquistadores and missionaries lugged this kind of writing box around with them on their journeys to ‘the New World’. The furniture took on different shapes in Latin America under the influence of indigenous cultures. These variants are characterised by traditional woodworking techniques and more varied, sometimes figurative representations.

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The Maison dite de la Reine Bérengère in Le Mans, ca. 1910 © Neurdein, privécollectie

Adolphe Singher

This unusual type of furniture was still popular in the 19th century. The production of copies flourished and historical specimens quickly found their way into private and public art collections. From the 19th century until 1912, the vargueño in the collection of Design Museum Gent was part of the collection of Adolphe Singher (1836-1910), the director of an insurance company in the historic French city of Le Mans. Adolphe Singher particularly loved objects from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. His collection included sculptures, metal objects, tapestries, furniture, wood carvings, ironwork and building fragments. He probably bought the vargueño during one of his business trips to Spain, as he ran insurance companies in both Le Mans and Madrid. One of the drawers of the vargueño is labelled with the coat of arms of the Castilla y León region and the partly legible inscription ‘Juzgado de [...] Palencia’. This suggests that the piece belonged to a court in the Spanish town of Palencia before it became part of Singher's collection.

Adolphe Singher liked to present himself as a custodian of local and national heritage. As a collector and antiquities expert, he contributed to the preservation, study and revaluation of works of art and antiquities. Moreover, as a member of the Société historique et archéologique du Maine, he promoted the preservation of monuments and picturesque townscapes. In 1891, he decided to practice what he preached and bought and completely restored three vacant 15th and 16th century half-timbered houses in the centre of Le Mans. One of the medieval houses, known as the Maison dite de la Reine Bérengère, was then used to accommodate his collection.

Visit from Ghent

In order to promote his collection and encourage historical study, Adolphe Singher opened his private museum to the public. Domestic and foreign (art) historians, antiquarians, artists and other interested parties came to marvel at the carefully positioned collection pieces, including the vargueño. In September 1899, Singher welcomed the neo-Gothic Ghent Guild of St.-Thomas and St.-Lucas, who were on a study trip in the Loire valley. Having first introduced his guests to the local archaeological society, he showed them around the medieval building. According to a report by Ghent architect Louis Cloquet, all the rooms, including the attics, cellars and courtyards, were overflowing with historical objects. Singher pointed out to his audience, among other things, a 15th century carved beam, a 16th century Flemish tapestry, a funerary monument and an Episcopal pulpit. In the vaulted cellar, the visitors were served a meal by servants in period costume. Although Cloquet did not specifically mention the vargueño, his report gives a good idea of the context in which the writing desk was used before it found its way to Ghent.

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Gallery in the Museum voor Sierkunst, 1920-1930 © Collection Archief Gent, SCMS_PBK_1649.

Fernand Scribe

Two years after the death of Adolphe Singher, the collection of the Musée Singher was auctioned off. The auction on 22 May 1912 at the Parisian auction house Hôtel Drouot attracted many interested parties, including the Paris-based art dealers Oscar Stettiner and Jacques Seligmann, the French archaeologist Theodore Reinach and... the Ghent painter, collector and patron Fernand Scribe (1851-1913). Scribe may have stayed in Paris in May 1912 on the occasion of the Salon, one of the most important art events of the year. Even in his twenties he liked to visit Hôtel Drouot, where daily auctions took place, during his annual trips to the French capital. According to a written note in the auction catalogue for the Singher collection, Scribe bought the vargueño for 2100 francs.


Fernand Scribe was closely connected to the Ghent Museum of Decorative Arts, today’s Design Museum Ghent. In fact he was very much involved in its establishment in 1903. In his will, he expressed the wish that the most valuable pieces of his collection should be given a place in various museums in Ghent after his death. That is how a large part of his collection of paintings ended up in the Museum of Fine Arts in early 1914. The Museum of Decorative Arts mainly received furniture, textiles and objects made of ceramics, copper, bronze and tin. When the museum moved to Hotel De Coninck in 1922, the vargueño became part of the permanently exhibited collection.

Sources

  • Louis Cloquet, "La gilde de St.-Thomas et de St.-Luc au Mans et dans la Sarthe", Revue historique et archéologique du Maine, 1899, pages 261-275.
  • Lieven Daenens, "Museum voor Sierkunst Gent", OKV, vol. 31, No. 4, 1993.
  • Daniel Levoyer and Claude Goisedieu, "La dynastie des Singher", La Vie Mancelle & Sarthoise, No. 425, 2012, pages 32-39.
  • Monica Piera Miquel, "La colección de escritorios de Salamanca o bargueños del Museu de les Arts Decoratives de Barcelona", Mueble, vol. 16, 2012, pages 18-23.
  • S.n., Collection de feu M. Adolphe Singher, Paris, 1912.
  • Monique Tahon-Vanroose, ‘De vrienden van Scribe. De Europese smaak van een Gents mecenas’, Antwerp, 1998.
  • Nathalie Zimmern, "A Peruvian Bargueno. Colonial variation on the European writing cabinets", Gazette des Beaux-Arts, vol. 6, No. 89, 1947, pages 109-122.
  • "Le musée de la Reine-Bérengère", www.lemans.fr

With thanks to Carole Hirardot and Caroline Philipsen-Mulsant.