A 17th century Antwerp ebony cabinet with painted panels

Ebony cabinet with painted panels
Antwerp, Flanders
17th century
Dimensions (doors closed): h. 64 cm, l. 55 cm, p. 34 cm
Dimensions (doors open): h. 89 cm, l. 118cm

The cabinet we're offering is an admirable example of Antwerp production in vogue in the first half of the 17th century. This extravagance in creation, due to both a cabinetmaker and a painter, found a very special place in small private museums (kunstkammer).
A cabinet with painted panels showed not only the wealth of its owner but also his refined taste, aesthetics and erudition. Art lovers were particularly passionate about this type of small furniture which served them both to store their collections of jewelry, medals, coins and various small objects, but also to enjoy the paintings integrated into the furniture instead of have pictures hung on the walls

Our cabinet is decorated with 15 painted panels with mythological subjects against a backdrop of green landscapes and perfectly reflects the Antwerp pictorial trends of the early 17th century.
Most of the subjects illustrate episodes from Ovid's Metamorphoses, strongly inspired by the engravings of Antonio Tempesta (1555-1630). These engravings published in 1606 considerably increased the mythological pictorial repertoire and quickly became the source of inspiration for Antwerp artists.
The stories contained in “The Metamorphoses” were perfectly suited subjects for cabinets of curiosities whose function was to reflect and explain the world and its origins.

Thus we find the mythical heroes and heroines: Cephalus and Procris, Venus and Adonis, Apollo, Pyramus and Thysbe, Daphne, Meleager and Atalanta, Narcissus.
The central door illustrating the fire of Troy reveals a small theater made up of bone and ebony inlay floors and mirrors separated by small silver columns.
The upper part rises to present two other painted panels (“ the fall of Icarus ” and “ Pan and Syrinx " ) separated by a mirror.

The style of our panels is close to the works of Frans Wouters (Lier 1612–1659 Antwerp), student of Pieter van Avont and Pierre Paul Rubens, specializing in small format paintings, he is known for his mainly mythological subjects against the backdrop of landscapes wooded.

The exterior of our sober and elegant cabinet is made of precious ebony veneer decorated with ebony moldings. It opens with two doors, a drawer on the front, and an upper compartment. The doors reveal 10 drawers as well as a central door. It stand on ebonized wooden ball feet.