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Glossary entry

French term or phrase:

Coffre à dessins

English translation:

drawing chest // decorated chest // plan chest

Added to glossary by Helen Shiner
Feb 2, 2009 09:15
15 yrs ago
French term

Coffre à dessins

French to English Other Furniture / Household Appliances
This term is in a list of personal property and household effects to be shared between spouses seeking to obtain a divorce.
Proposed translations (English)
3 +2 drawing chest // decorated chest
2 +3 plan chest
3 -1 Artists' box
Change log

Feb 9, 2009 09:08: Helen Shiner Created KOG entry

Discussion

Charles Hawtrey (X) Feb 2, 2009:
A clue could lie in other effects they have: a drawing board or easel, or alternatively other significant antique furniture. Admittedly, you're scuppered if there are both.
kashew Feb 2, 2009:
You really should ask your client - very ambiguous.
Daniel Weston Feb 2, 2009:
There are any number of ways you could go with this, I think it's a chest with drawings or designs carved on it. You might want to note it and ask for clarification from your client.

Proposed translations

+2
7 mins
Selected

drawing chest // decorated chest

In general I think these are likely to be a drawing chest - i.e. somewhere that an architect, say, might keep his drawings, but I also discovered this meaning and give it in case the couple have antique furniture:

Coffre à dessins géométriques et date gravéehttp://www.allegriantiquites.ch/cgi-bin/item.pl?lang=fr&cate...

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Note added at 9 mins (2009-02-02 09:24:47 GMT)
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Sorry, I should have said 'plan chest' for what an architect uses. It is obviously too early in the week for me...

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Note added at 6 days (2009-02-09 09:09:20 GMT) Post-grading
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That sounds like a good compromise to me - thanks for the points.
Peer comment(s):
agree Bourth (X) : "Drawing cabinet/chest" is fine for architect's drawings. //You too? There's a lot of it going round.
15 mins
Thanks, Bourth - I think I am suffering from snow on the brain.
neutral Craig Macdonald : architects and artists keep their work in file drawers known in the usa as "flat files"
6 hrs
Craig - you need to look up plan chest - when I worked with architects, plan chests were everywhere./Your disagree tends to suggest that you think only the US matters!! You could just say: 'known as flat files in the US'.
agree B D Finch : Yes for a plan chest, you did get there first.
8 hrs
Thanks, B D Finch, not that it really matters, since it is about helping the Asker, but it would be interesting to know which of the options suggested is right in this case.
Something went wrong...
3 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "Thank you. I opted for "drawing chest" as a more general term than "plan chest" in this context as I wasn't 100% certain of the architect link here."
+3
3 hrs

plan chest

That's where we keep our paper.
Peer comment(s):
agree Karen Vincent-Jones (X) : Yes, this is it. See catalogues of architects' supplies.
5 mins
Thank you Karen...even in Sheffield....
agree Emma Paulay : A distinct possibility!
35 mins
Thank you Emma!
neutral Helen Shiner : For some reason you seem to have missed that I suggested 'plan chest' a long time ago!/No problem! I hope your wife has calmed down now and that she didn't see off an heirloom! What do you think about the antique chest I attached to my suggestion?
3 hrs
I'm so sorry, Helen, I hadn't noticed yr note. We had 2 plan chests, one an "elephant", but my wife attacked it with a hatchet. It would have been easier to soap the runners! Very expensive,H ! Antique Chests..Sophia Loren..great quality!
agree Harald Moelzer (medical-translator)
4 days
Thank you harald
Something went wrong...
-1
12 mins

Artists' box

This is what it means to me...

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Note added at 4 hrs (2009-02-02 13:24:44 GMT)
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Got the apostrophe in the wrong place...
Reference:

http://www.amazon.com/Richeson-Medium-Wooden-Artists-Box/dp/B0007WDOXQ

Peer comment(s):
disagree B D Finch : That is a coffret: http://www.atelier-du-peintre.info/index.php?cPath=2_90&osCs...
8 hrs
A "coffret" can be a smaller version of a "coffre". I admit this suggestion isn't the most likely but I don't think it's completely wrong.
Something went wrong...
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