Description
Life-sized painted wooden cut-out figures of soldiers serving maids, children and animals stand in dark corners of some museums and country houses, often creating a disturbingly lifelike impression for the casual viewer. Many strange theories have been put forward to account for these figures, now known as dummy boards or silent companions: were they intended to act as firescreens, or to scare off burglars, or even to ward off loneliness? This book disentangles their true origins in seventeenth-century Dutch trompe l'oeil painting and discusses the range of purposes (primarily decorative) to which they were put. There is also a section on the closely related subject of chimney boards - panels painted in trompe l'oeil to disguise fireplace openings in the summer months.
