rugueux

English translation: rough

19:55 Mar 25, 2017

French to English translations [Non-PRO]
Art/Literary - Archaeology / ancient art

French term or phrase: rugueux

Hello!
DOC: 1907 Museum catalog of ancient Egyptian mirrors. Catalog entry.
CONTEXT: 44020. Mirror. -- Bronze, wood, and silver. (Pl. V) Il ne serait pas impossible que le chapiteau, dont le bois est ***rugueux***, ait été également revêtu d'une feuille d'argent. .
ATTEMPT: It would not be impossible that the capital, whose wood is ***rough/coarse***, had also been encased/clad/overlain by a silver sheeting/foil.
ISSUE: Not sure how to convey this as accurately as possible.
Thanks in advance for any feedback!

angela3thomas
United States

English translation:rough

Explanation:
This can be expressed much more concisely in English:

"The rough wood capital may have been covered in silver leaf."

I think you should avoid the double negative of the French, and your use of "would/had" doesn't sound quite right.

I'm assuming the whole of the capital is made of wood - if not, you'll need to tweak the translation slightly.

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Note added at 34 mins (2017-03-25 20:30:38 GMT)
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"May also".

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philgoddard
United States

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4 +2

rough

philgoddard

coarse-grained wood

Christopher Crockett

Discussion entries: 2

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34 mins confidence:

peer agreement (net): +2

rough

philgoddard
United States
Native speaker of: English
PRO pts in category: 52

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2 days 22 hrs confidence:

coarse-grained wood

Explanation:
Il ne serait pas impossible que le chapiteau, dont le bois est ***rugueux***, ait été également revêtu d\'une feuille d\'argent.

It is not impossible that the capital, which is carved in a coarse-grained wood, was clad in a thin layer of silver.

Tell the truth, I can't make heads or tails out of parts of this sentence; but the main thing which I believe he's saying (or trying to say) is that *because* the wood was of such a coarse (also called "open") grain, it was necessary to cover it with silver --"silver leaf" would convey the idea of thinness inherent in "feuille" (but I don't think I've ever come across *silver* leaf as a term before, only gold leaf).

A coarse- (or open-) grained wood (or, for that matter, stone) would not lend itself to delicate carving --think about the difference between, say, pine and ebony or carving in very coarse limestone vs. in close-grained marble.

By cladding the face (in this case) in silver and then "chasing" the metal over the rough wooden form, the result would be a smoother-appearing face. (see the Wikipedia entry below)

One problem I have is that I don't understand why he puts that conditional phrase "Il ne serait pas impossible que...ait été également" in there --nor what the hell the "également" is referring to (presumably, he's only talking about a single mirror here, or could it refer to the previous catalog entry which also was made in this technique??).

But the silver apparently still survives on the thing (as he suggests in the opening material description), so there is no doubt about it's being present; and the wood must be at least partly visible beneath the silver.

Perhaps he's articulating (somewhat clumsily, in my view) what he believes to be the reason (or, at least one of the reasons) why the wood --which must be partly visible-- was covered in silver: yes, it is partly for imparting a luxurious appearance, but also because the grain of the wood was so coarse that it was necessary to clad it in thin metal. (No, I believe that Luxury would trump Necessity in this case.)

Which is another way of saying that using a coarse-grained wood was sufficient, since the final product was going to be covered in a precious metal anyway, as befits such an important and luxurious liturgical object.

Either way, I'm pretty sure that the bottom line is that the wood is too coarse to hold delicately carved details but, coarse as it is, it suffices, since it only needs to establish the basic, underlying form of the head, so that it can be clad in (more elegant appearing) silver, which also allows for the expression of more delicate details.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repouss%C3%A9_and_chasing

Christopher Crockett
Local time: 03:27
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English
PRO pts in category: 131

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English translation: rough

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