O-4301

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box (coal)

Coal Boxes

Throughout the Parliament Building, decorative metal work speaks to love of craftsmanship. Master metalworker Paul Beau’s intricate designs for the decorative elements in Parliament were copyrighted so they couldn’t be used elsewhere but the building. The coal boxes he designed speak to the earlier era and the cold winters in the original Parliament Building. For the new building, they were decorative pieces for office spaces. They are sturdy wooden containers, hinged and decorated with iron cast in the familiar design of the fleur-de-lys. This box, which measures 48.3 by 46 by 46.5 centimetres, is showing its age, with drying wood and splitting iron fixtures, yet it remains solid, a testament to the craftsmanship of Beau and his team.

Paul Beau

Paul Beau (1871–1949) of Montreal was a master metal worker associated with Canada’s Arts and Crafts movement. The movement emerged in Britain in response to the factory production of decorative items and gained popularity in urban centres across the Empire from the 1890s through the 1920s. Because of the emphasis it puts on handcrafted elements and traditional materials, the Arts and Crafts style was especially compatible with the Gothic Revival architecture of the Parliament buildings.

Beau supervised a wrought iron workshop on the grounds of Parliament from 1920 through 1926, where he and his team of artisans produced decorative metalwork for the newly opened Centre Block. Their handiwork is visible throughout the building in the form of fireplace accessories, light fixtures, gates, and railings—even certain door hinges. Beau also created the ornate calendar stand, inkstand and seal press placed on the Clerk’s Table in the House of Commons, combining metals of contrasting colours, a technique that is characteristic of his work.