Cabinet on stand

During the first half of the 17th century, the cabinet-on-stand became an important furniture form in Italy. Not only were such cabinets useful for the storage of small personal articles and collectibles but they could be highly decorative. Italian examples were especially noteworthy because they were often covered with "pietre dure" marquetry. In this technique, hard stones selected for their color were shaped so that they could be assembled like a puzzle into decorative motifs and glued onto the surface of a piece of furniture. By the mid-17th century, clients in northern Europe were demanding furniture decorated in this fashion. While some Italian furniture with "pietre dure," as well as ready-made stone slabs, were imported, cabinetmakers in various parts of Europe created acceptable alternatives to the Italian prototypes.

This cabinet is a fine example of such work. It is close to Italian examples in its overall form, a case containing banks of drawers supported on an open frame. However, instead of using stone veneer to achieve colorful effects, the surface is faced with marquetry composed of tortoiseshell, ivory, and various natural and dyed woods. Nevertheless, the nature of the wooden marquetry is quite close to "peitre dure" examples, as it is composed of relatively large elements arranged in stiff patterns. Also linking this example closely to Italian prototypes are the motifs of flowers and birds arranged on alternating drawers, a formula that frequently appears on Italian work. This affinity to Italian prototypes made in the 1650s or 1660s, soon after the vogue for polychrome floral marquetry reached northern Europe.

At present, the exact origin of this cabinet is unknown. Th. H. Scheurleer has argued convincingly that the cabinet-on-stand form was being made in Paris by the early 1650s (Scheurleer 1984, 333). As Scheurleer points out, however, cabinetmakers in Antwerp were making and exporting the form by the mid-1650s. Consequently, it is difficult to prove conclusively that this example is Parisian. Only a systematic analysis of the construction features of a large group of related cabinets is like to answer such questions.

The intercolumnar elements beneath the drawer section of the frame are either replacements or relatively recent additions.

"Decorative Arts Highlights from the Wendy and Emery Reves Collection," page 47