Secretary with lacca povera decoration

In 1930 the National Museum obtained a secretary from the famous Strahl collection in Stara Loka, which had formerly been the property of the Bishops of Freising, feudal lords of Škofja Loka. It is decorated with cut-out, coloured and pasted-on prints. The front of the cabinet is sharply articulated, which is typical of certain northern Italian case furniture of that time, and has plain brass mounts. The drawer fronts are decorated with cut-out figural scenes behind green-blue painted glass, imitating valuable porcelain. Copper engravings are also pasted onto the light softwood ground, which was then heavily varnished. The trefoil pediment features a composition of vases on ornamental pedestals and garlands and there are fruits, shells, birds and floral bouquets on the wooden strips surrounding the drawers. The whole left side has a secondary lining of embossed gilt leather. The figural scenes originate from a series of copper engravings on the theme of pastoral lovers, within Rococo cartouches, ladies and cavaliers passing the time in social games and making music. A flautist and a horn player next to a reclining shepherdess can be identified on the lower left drawer front, in an Arcadian scene made in collage cut from two high quality copper engravings by the main Augsburg copper engraver and publisher of the eighteenth century, Martin Engelbrecht. Several other prints on this secretary also show German, particularly Augsburg origin, but the majority were probably made in the Italian printing and publishing house of Remondini in Bassano del Grappa, northwest of Venice, which was the leading publisher and printer in this part of Europe from the mid-eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth century. The Remondini family printed a huge number of their own, as well as those of French and German design. Many were specifically intended for decorating objects and furniture in the lacca povera manner, as a cheaper substitute for hand painting and a reflection of the art of distant Asia.