Carved panel with knights on horseback

[Skinny]

I just bought this folk art looking thing with two knights fighting on it. It's about 3 ft long and has the words SFIDA DI RILLO E ROSIO across the bottom. I think it's Italian, but I can't translate it. Something about a challenge? There are holes in the backs of the winged serpents where two dowel rods used to go into it. It's some kind of heavy wood, maybe Oak? The tag at the store said it was part of an old carousel, but who knows. Looks like it used to be painted bright colors. I paid a good bit for it, probably too much. Does anyone have any ideas about it? Any ideas about value? Thanks!

[Skinny]

Pic 2

[Skinny]

Pic 3

[mart]

Can`t say about the carousel but it translates to " Challenge of Rillo and Rosio " !!  Could be an Italian folk tale !!

[Skinny]

Yeah, thanks. I was starting to wonder if it might be the names of the two warriors on there

[mart]

The top is not there !!  Did they have it ??  Would be better to have the entire thing !!
Couldn`t figure out why I couldn`t find  a reference to these characters in Italy or Greece,, went back to check and its Romanian !!  Which makes the Carousel more likely !!

[Skinny]

I'm not sure what you mean by the top, but there weren't any other pieces there. This piece looks like it must have hung down below something else. I'll upload another picture that shows where the two pieces of square wooden rod attaced to the top of it at one time. I don't know if it's really missing anything or not, apart from the whole rest of the carousel or whatever else it was a part of

[mart]

Considering where the tops of the warriors heads are and there is only half a flower,,and the top edge is very uneven,, I think there was another part that was somehow broken off !!

[Skinny]

I don't think I can upload any more pictures, and it's hard to tell from the pictures I've taken anyway, but this piece of wood is from a slab very near the outside of the tree. On the back (top and bottom) there is an uneven beveled edge which is simply the natural outside of the tree trunk. This board can't have ever been any biger than it is now. It could have had another board with more carved relief attached to the top of it I guess, but I just don't see any evidence of that. Any attaching piece would have to be carved at the joint to match the natural contours along the top of the board below if it was to fit together. The thing your seeing that looks like a flower is just some tree foliage, because they're fighting in a forest. It definitly was atached to two 1 1/2" square pieces that went into the two serpants backs. You can see discoloration of the wood around the dowel holes where there used to be something there.

[cogar]

I agree with Mart, ……. the top portion of the "carving" is missing.


And this, to wit:

, but this piece of wood is from a slab very near the outside of the tree. On the back (top and bottom) there is an uneven beveled edge which is simply the natural outside of the tree trunk.

Is not, IMLO, what you think you are observing.


As a matter of fact, your description of (what you think) that you are seeing is an impossibility.


The only exception that would even come close to being what you are asserting is that iffen your plaque was cut from a burl (A large rounded outgrowth on the trunk or branch of a tree.)   

[Skinny]

It's called a slab. It's a board cut from near the outside of the log, when the saw starts to daylight out. I used to burn slabs in my woodstove, I'm very familiar with what they look like. Some of them are mostly bark on one side, some are sawcut on both sides with bark on the edges. Slabs can't be used like regular boards because the edges won"t be square, but you could use a nice one like this to do a carving on it's best side.

The sawcut on the back of this piece daylighted out about the serpants head on the right side, and you can actually see evidence of some old bark on the back of it there. Not the rough outer bark, but the inner membrane that carries the nutrients. Some of it has flaked off with age of course. I used to be a treeman, and I've probably cut up a thousand dead trees, so I know what the outside of a tree looks like when the dead bark falls off.

Anyhow, I can't see that there could ever have been more carving on top of this carving. They used all the board surface that was there to use.

So I've made my case the best I can with words, where handling the objegct and seeing it up close isn't an option. Believe or disbelieve as you will

[cogar]

Skinny, you are probably correct ……. even though I can't imagine someone putting that much work in a carving on a narrow piece of "slab" lumber.

I would think an elaborate carving such as that would have been made for a "stand alone" cabinet, hutch, headboard, etc.

[Skinny]

Yeah that's a fair point, I dont know why they would use this particular piece of wood either. Maybe something in it's shape or grain made is suitable for this carving. One of the cutouts for the serpants tail looks like it probably had a knothole there to begin with. Maybe the carver was frugal? Maybe the the tree it was harvested from was special in some way. All we could do is speculate

[mart]

Stop and think !!  Would they ( and the Romanians were great carvers) put something that looked like that on a carousel  ??  No,, its half a flower !!  Ask any woman !!

[Skinny]

Lol, im pretty sure its tree leaves, or more like branches with leaves. Stylized foliage. They're green and they're on top of tree trunks. There's tree foliage all across the top of the carving. The prominent branches in the middle look like they're mirroring a shrub that's depicted on the ground below it.

I don't necessarily  believe the carousel connection, that's just what the lady at the flea market said she thought it was, and what was written on the price tag.