18th Century, Pair of Italian Rococo Chinoiserie Lacquered Wood Corner Cabi

18th Century, Pair of Italian Rococo Chinoiserie Lacquered Wood Corner Cabinets

This pair of corner cabinets was made in Piedmont, Italy, around the middle of the eighteenth century according to the taste of the baroque.
The structure is in poplar wood, lacquered and decorated on the front side. The central body consists of an open door that conceals a compartment with two shelves. Above, a mixed cymatium crowns the piece of furniture and consists of two small tops bordered with gold leaf on red bole. Equally finished in gold are reserves and frames that decorate the furniture highlighting the various parts of which it is composed. Below the door, a open compartment is presented by a quadrilobate profile. The piece of furniture is decorated with floral ornaments and polychrome chinoiserie designs partly in relief thanks to the application of cast plaster. Inside the side frames are depicted characters dressed in oriental with floral decorations typical of fashion in chinoiserie. The two central doors have different designs, animated by oriental figures dressed in Chinese clothes in an outdoor context with flowering plants, trees, butterflies, a bird. Particularly valuable is the attention to detail with which the clothes are described, the headdresses, the dishes full of fruits and corals, the umbrella and other small objects that accompany the figures. The furniture rests on three curved legs, also finely decorated.
These two corner cabinets, certainly created to embellish large and important noble halls, can still complete the furnishing of complex parts of the house, such as the corners, thus bringing decorativeness and elegance connected to their functionality. Thanks to their small size, they can be exhibited individually or in pairs in any environment, such as an entrance hall or corridor, a room, a study and are suitable to be combined with both antique and modern furniture.
The term Chinoiserie refers to a period of European art, from the eighteenth century and spread until the nineteenth century, in which there was a considerable influence of Chinese art, also in the wake of a growing interest that Europe had developed for everything exotic in general. This period was characterized by the use of imaginative images of an imaginary China and palaces and living rooms of the nobility and the rich bourgeoisie were taken furnished with objects from the Far East or made in Europe with obvious derivation and inspiration ornate Chinese. In Italy, as in the rest of Europe, rowing for China and film series was very popular in the eighteenth century. Despite the fact that Piedmont had almost no contact with China, the taste and fashion for film series spread widely in the capital and throughout the country. The Piedmontese italian taste suffered greatly from French influences.
Given the spread of Chinese taste and fashion, several painters specialized in the decoration of grotesque and chinoiserie, both for the court and its palaces and then for private commissions of nobles and rich bourgeois also applied to furniture.