Cabinet
ca. 1560-1600 (made)
Artist/Maker | |
Place of origin |
The inlay on this cabinet (escritorio) suggests a wide range of influences. It combines flower vases and small-scale geometric patterns in the Spanish mudejar style derived from Islamic woodwork. It centres on a coat of arms (probably fictitious) and illustrates, unusually, a scene (here Noah's ark) reminiscent of Italian pictorial inlay. By the late 16th century cabinets were highly fashionable in Spain, and inventory references to the royal palaces in Madrid indicate that they were used in many rooms. Many of these were imported from Italy, Flanders and Germany. In 1603 an edict of Philip III prohibited the import of Nuremberg cabinets to Spain, because they threatened the trade in Spanish cabinets. Equally, a petition on behalf of Spanish furniture makers claimed that cabinets imported from Germany were being made in Spain for about half the price of the imported product.
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Object details
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Object type | |
Parts | This object consists of 16 parts.
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Materials and techniques | Walnut with inlay of box, bone (some stained green), and other woods; the stand of carved walnut |
Brief description | Spanish, late C16 Spanish, late C16; from cabinet, six turned legs, arcading; diaper pattern, 2' 2 1/2" x 2' 11 1/4" part of cabinet, Spanish, late C16 part of cabinet, Spanish, late C16 part of cabinet, Spanish, late C16 part of cabinet, Spanish, late C16 part of cabinet, Spanish, late C16 part of cabinet, Spanish, late C16 part of cabinet, Spanish, late C16 part of cabinet, Spanish, late C16 part of cabinet, Spanish, late C16 part of cabinet, Spanish, late C16 part of cabinet, Spanish, late C16 part of cabinet, Spanish, late C16 part of cabinet, Spanish, late C16 to cabinet, Spanish, late C16 |
Physical description | Fall-front cabinet (escritorio) with pictorial inlay on the exterior showing Noah's ark, with animals and trees, the buildings of a city, and so-called 'plateresque' decoration of large-scale arabesque scrolls and formal motifs. The cabinet contains twelve small drawers and two cupboards. The interior is inlaid with formal motifs, including foliate scrolls and birds. With a demountable walnut carved stand consisting of two end units with baluster turnings, joined by a central arcaded section. The exterior of the fall front (supported on three butterfly hinges) with a central coat of fictitious arms, (made up of the royal quarterings of Castile and Leon supported by the eagle of Isabel the Catholic) overlaying a black eagle with outstretched wings, and a cast metal escutcheon (damaged and with sections missing) mounted on felt, and held on 4 slotted screws (probably 20th-century). Across the lower half of the fall-front the inlay includes Noah's ark with gangplank, into which numerous animals, mostly in pairs (lions, horses, deer, oxen, sheep, goats, camels, dogs, pigs (or rabbits), cats (?), swans and various birds) direct themselves. In the left foreground are a fountain and four trees. At top left is a series of buildings with three cupolas with crosses, a crenellated tower and three columns with birds (perhaps cranes rather than long-billed storks) atop, and a building with balusters. Across the front are four vases, two smaller containing shorter stems (carnations?), and two larger from which spring symmetrical slender curling stems with leaves, grapes, flowers, pomegranates (?), with birds (including magpies), snails and snakes among the stems. The whole panel is bordered (reading from the inside) with a simple cord, husk and two beads, simple cord, raised band chevron of two colours (4mm wide). This border is used on all sides of the cabinet. The top of the cabinet with a plateresque design of two large circles with interwoven slender stems which flank scrolling stems with flower buds. The ends of the cabinet show an archway supported by two elaborate candelabra – each containing a large vase with flowers, in turn flanked by two stems rising from bases. Each end has an iron drop handle on 2 quatrefoil backplates, one (at the right end) missing. The back is formed by a single wide plank (scrub-planed) and a narrow added strip nailed on with large, hand-made nails, supplemented by numerous small modern nails. The interior of the fall front is inlaid with a design centred on a circle from which spring vases with slender stems and birds, with a wide border of scrolling stems and buds. The cabinet contains twelve drawers and two cupboards, the fronts decorated with dogstooth borders (triangles of wood alternating with bone), surrounding grotesques, birds, snakes, snails, vases, winged lions, monsters and grotesque masks. The two cupboard doors are each inlaid with a medallion containing a profile male bust with hat. Numerous small areas of inlay have been replaced with a pale wood. The scene of animals entering Noah's Ark along a gang-plank, before the flood, while surrounded by numerous animals and, in the air, birds, appears to derive from the woodcut illustration (one of 198) for the Biblia Sacra (Lyons 1558), by Bernard Salomon (c.1508-1561). |
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Object history | Bought for £12 from M. Riano (presumably Señor Juan F.Riano), per Messrs McCracken. No reference found on nominal file to objects purchased before 1872. According to Clive Wainwright 'The making of the South Kensington Museum III - Collecting abroad' in JOURNAL of the HISTORY of COLLECTIONS, ed. Charlotte Gere and Carolyn Sargentson: The Making of the South Kensington Museum. Curators, dealers and collectors at home and abroad (Vol. 14, No. 1, 2002) (Oxford, 2002), Juan Riano y Montera (1829-1901) was a Professor of the History of Art based in Madrid, whose wife had lived in England, spoke English perfectly and who was well connected socially in England. They were a charming, cosmopolitan couple, with a beautifully furnished house that was decorated with a collection of old Spanish ceramics. In May 1870, shortly after meeting Henry Cole Riano was appointed as 'Professional Art Referee in Spain. His duties to be to obtain permission to make castings, &c., and to report upon objects for sale suitable for South Kensington Museum... To submit Report monthly, and to receive £5.5s therefore. To be allowed first class rail fare, and 20 francs per diem when obliged to leave Madrid.' He wrote A Catalogue of Art Objects of Spanish Production (1872) and a 'Handbook', The Industrial Arts of Spain (1879) - neither of which lists this cabinet- for the Museum, and was instrumental in raising the profile of Spanish art in the collections. See also, Marjorie Trusted, "In all cases of difference adopt Signor Riaño's view - Collecting Spanish decorative arts at South Kensington in the late nineteenth century", in JOURNAL of the HISTORY of COLLECTIONS vol. 18 no. 2 (2006) pp. 225-236 |
Historical context | Regarding this type of decorated cabinet: Aguilo, Estrado y Dormitorio, (Madrid, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, 1990), see #19) suggest that such works are from Aragon, especially the cities of Zaragoza and Tarazona (NE Spain). A marquetry (Taracea) workshop is documented in Tarazona in the 16th century. The type is called traditional pinyonet decoration (veneered decorated with small cuttings of dyed boxwood and bone engraved, inserted directly into the veneer). Aguilo notes an Italian influence in the use of engraved, tinted bone reminiscent of Neapolitan tarsia incastro. Aguilo suggests that walnut, box and bone are the conventional materials. Burr p.38 supports the idea of an Aragonesque origin. Another, similar example in Osterreichisches Museum fur Angewandte Kunst, (Vienna), and many other similar cabinets in Spanish and private collections. In comparision to other examples (dated mid to late 16th century) illustrated by Aguilo, the V&A cabinet's seems relatively unusual in terms of its exterior decoration with Noah's ark (most employ plateresque decoration with geometrical and renaissance derived ornament), the wide border of alternating veneers, and the lack of a hinged lid (though this latter feature does not seem to be universal). Aguilo cat. no. 260 shows an Italian 16th century cabinet of similar form and plateresque decoration, the exterior of the fall front depicting in bone and walnut a figurative scene similar in style to the V&A cabinet. Palau Robert: Moble Català. (Barcelona, 1994), cat. no. 30 describes a comparable piece (Museu d'Arts Decoratives. Ajuntament de Barcelona. Inv. no. 64165 as 1530-60, Catalan). Aguilo calls this type of ornament plateresque (based on the Spanish word for silversmith, platero), apparently to indicate intricate ornament combining late gothic and mudéjar features, in particular the motif of stylised vase with elongated linear stems. However the term, first used c1580 of a mannerist type of ornament has not been used consistently, and has tended to indicate Spanish architecture – often with candelabra and grotestques, combining late gothic, Muslim and renaissance elements. Aguilo, p. 98 argues that escritorios (particularly those of German marquetry) were usually supplied with travelling cases, citing a documentary reference c.1500, that these might be in the form of an external box, or in the form of an external nailed leather covering as in "escritorios de Flandes guarnecidos de cuero (1579, inventory of Magdalena Durango), an example illustrated cat. 257. Very few survive According to Riano ( The industrial arts in Spain by Juan F. Riaño, 1890) by the late 16th century cabinets were highly fashionable in Spain, and inventory references to the royal palaces in Madrid give the impression that they were found in many rooms. Many of these were imported from Italy, Flanders and Germany - and by 1603 an edict of Philip III prohibited the import of Nuremberg cabinets to Spain. Equally, a petition on behalf of Spanish furniture makers claimed that cabinets and escritoires of the type imported from Germany were being made in Spain for about half the price of the imported product. |
Production | probably Aragon (Zaragoza or Tarazona); the stand probably 17th century |
Literary reference | Noah's Ark |
Summary | The inlay on this cabinet (escritorio) suggests a wide range of influences. It combines flower vases and small-scale geometric patterns in the Spanish mudejar style derived from Islamic woodwork. It centres on a coat of arms (probably fictitious) and illustrates, unusually, a scene (here Noah's ark) reminiscent of Italian pictorial inlay. By the late 16th century cabinets were highly fashionable in Spain, and inventory references to the royal palaces in Madrid indicate that they were used in many rooms. Many of these were imported from Italy, Flanders and Germany. In 1603 an edict of Philip III prohibited the import of Nuremberg cabinets to Spain, because they threatened the trade in Spanish cabinets. Equally, a petition on behalf of Spanish furniture makers claimed that cabinets imported from Germany were being made in Spain for about half the price of the imported product. |
Bibliographic references |
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Collection | |
Accession number | 294-1870 |
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Record created | February 23, 2005 |
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