Anónimo español del siglo XVII Lot n° 37

City hall chest. Walnut wood. Seventeenth century. Rectangular carved walnut chest, with flat top, and simple decoration on its fronts of smooth moldings of different widths. It rises slightly from the floor thanks to six legs with cylindrical die on a flattened circle. On the exterior, it has a series of wrought iron fittings (corner pieces with a flordelized finish), two handles on the sides with openwork fittings and, on the front, three keyed locks with an openwork lock shield decorated with simplified vegetal elements. Inside, it has a wooden partition on one side and located high up, which consists of a rectangular space with a hinged lid and two small drawers at the bottom. The three keys, made of iron, have their eyes worked and decorated, with simple decorative elements on that side of the central part and the usual flat escutcheons. Chests with three locks are also known as "City Hall" or "Council" chests, because both these and those with two keys were often used by religious, military or civilian organizations to store valuable objects and documents, securing them by giving a key to each person in charge (as many people as locks and keys), so that they had to join together to open the piece of furniture. In many places of the Spanish territories it was used as a municipal archive, following laws inherited from a pragmatic of June 9, 1500 with which the Catholic Monarchs forced the Councils of their territories to build town halls, jails and to have an ark of privileges and deeds. In spite of having been abundant in their time, numerous examples have not come down to us because they have fallen into disuse and have been replaced. Compare with that of the Council of Villafranca de la Marisma (Los Palacios y Villafranca, Seville), that of Valdipiélago (León), that of Matapozuelos (Valladolid), that of the Cabildo de Buenos Aires in Argentina (18th century, following earlier models), etc. Measurements: 157 x 64 x 78 cm.