A French carved Sainte Lucie wood marriage casket, late 17th/early 18th century, Nancy, attributed to César Bagard

Related literature :

P. Marot, « Recherches sur les sculpteurs en 'bois de Sainte-Lucie' : les Foullon », Le Pays lorrain, Journal de la société d'archéologie lorraine et du musée historique lorrain, n° 1, 1968

H. Demoriane, « Le bois de Bagard », Connaissance des arts, n° 191, January 1968

C. Humbert, Les arts décoratifs en Lorraine, de la fin du XVIIe siècle à l'ère industrielle, Paris, 1993

César Bagard (1620-1707) and Sainte Lucie wood

This wedding casket is carved from a rare wood known as Sainte-Lucie (Prunus mahaleb), a local species prized in Lorraine in the 17th century for its fine grain and warm amber tone. The name Sainte-Lucie evokes the forest, now disappeared, that once stretched across the territory of Sampigny in the Meuse region. Its carved decoration, composed of foliage scrolls and delicately carved volutes, demonstrates a technical virtuosity akin to goldsmithing.

An object of great symbolic value, the wedding casket was intended to hold jewellery, contracts or personal effects, and accompanied the union as a marker of social status and domestic intimacy. The richness of its decoration reflects the importance attached to this object in the context of the marriage ritual.

This type of production was characteristic of workshops in Nancy in the second half of the 17th century, particularly those associated with César Bagard, a sculptor from Lorraine renowned for his works in Sainte-Lucie wood. At a time when the use of precious metals was restricted, this material became a luxury substitute, enabling the creation of refined objects with a Baroque aesthetic. In order to support his long and costly military campaigns for the kingdom, Louis XIV ordered his subjects, in 1689 and 1709, to dispose of their precious metal objects so that they could be melted down to finance the ongoing wars.