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Source Description
This door, decorated with panels carved in a linen-fold pattern, was probably a back or interior door of a middle-class home. It is remarkable for its cat hole. Cats were primarily kept as working mousers at a time when there was no refrigeration and spoiling grain could tempt mice. Few doors with cat holes have survived from this early period, but the 14th-century English writer Geoffrey Chaucer described one in the "Miller's Tale" from his "Canterbury Tales." In the narrative, a servant, whose knocks go unanswered, uses the hole to peek in: "An hole he foond, ful lowe upon a bord/ Ther as the cat was wont in for to crepe,/ And at the hole he looked in ful depe,/ And at the last he hadde of hym a sighte."
Scholar Source Context
Document identity
localId
18381
label
Door with Cat Hole
core
obj
dtoType
object
citationUrl
pageCount
1
Source metadata
id
18381
sourceUrl
contentType
object
stage
normalized
title
Door with Cat Hole
description
This door, decorated with panels carved in a linen-fold pattern, was probably a back or interior door of a middle-class home. It is remarkable for its cat hole. Cats were primarily kept as working mousers at a time when there was no refrigeration and spoiling grain could tempt mice. Few doors with cat holes have survived from this early period, but the 14th-century English writer Geoffrey Chaucer described one in the "Miller's Tale" from his "Canterbury Tales." In the narrative, a servant, whose knocks go unanswered, uses the hole to peek in: "An hole he foond, ful lowe upon a bord/ Ther as the cat was wont in for to crepe,/ And at the hole he looked in ful depe,/ And at the last he hadde of hym a sighte."
provenance
Baron Cassel van Doorn; Blumka Gallery, New York, November, 1969; Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, 1969, by purchase.
date
1450-1500 (Late Medieval)
citationUrl
rightsUri
CC0
language
en
genreSpecific
Wood
doors
imageCount
1
pageCount
1
source
import
dimensions
units
cm
width
174
height
91.9
depth
4.4
dimensionsRaw
without hinges: 68 1/2 x 36 3/16 x 1 3/4 in. (174 x 91.9 x 4.39 cm)
Source extras
cul
Medieval European
med
wood (oak)
creator_ids
6229
collection_ids
REN
TAF
exhibition_ids
none
Single page context
seq
1
pageIndex
0
type
photo
mediaId
0929a2f4252a7b19