The fairy, the ghost and the alcove

Abstract

This article examines the discovery, promotion, and display of the Lit de Justice d’Argentelles, a striking ensemble of medieval woodcarvings said to constitute a dais and throne canopy for the judicial bench of a nobleman, now at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Once a celebrated piece of secular furniture of the Middle Ages, it was revealed over time to be an assemblage of disparate, if authentic, medieval carved elements obtained from an unknown ecclesiastical context, probably in the early nineteenth century. The critical fortunes of this object not least the story of its remarkable origins in an enchanted manor house allow us to trace rising interest in and motivations behind Romantic interpretations of medieval art by antiquaries, collectors, and museum professionals in France and the United States from the mid-nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries.