Cupboard stove

In Luxembourg and neighboring regions (Wallonia, Lorraine, and the Rhineland), households often had stove cupboards, mainly used for heating. A taque is a cast-iron plate placed in the fireplace – here the kitchen fireplace – allowing the fire to radiate heat into the adjacent room, the “Stuff,” through an opening in the partition wall. The cupboard doors allowed better control of heat distribution in the room.

Taqes were often decorated with images such as biblical or mythological scenes, saints, coats of arms, historical scenes, or everyday life. On this taque in the “Possenstuff,” the fleur-de-lis coat of arms, the emblem of the Kingdom of France, is depicted. Over the course of the 19th century, taques and stove cupboards were gradually replaced by stoves for heating.