A cabinet-on-stand veneered in ebony and ornamented with laque incrusté (inlaid ornament filled with tinted shellac, imitating Japanese lacquer) and with plaques of turtle shell set against a red ground; with mounts of lacquered brass. The cabinet, on an open stand with turned legs, shows double doors set between banks of drawers. Antwerp, Southern Netherlands, ca. 1650-1660

Cabinet on stand, veneered with ebony on a carcase of oak, with the stand in ebonized wood (probably pearwood). The cabinet shows two banks of five drawers to each side of an architectural doorcase (aedicule) with double doors, that incorporates an upper and lower drawer hidden by the overall design. The double doors open to show eight drawer fronts, the lowest two fronting a single drawer. The cabinet is ornamented with coloured composition of the type knows as laque incrusté, the frame with veneers and inlays of turtle shell set over red composition, with ivory and ebony stringing. The cabinet has ebony mouldings and mounts of brass, now gilded but originally simply lacquered. The exterior doors and drawers are each set with an oval, high relief boss, veneered in the turtle shell.
Design
Cabinet
The cabinet is rectangular, the front drawers not enclosed with doors, and showing no evidence of the removal of doors. The sides are veneered with two panels of square ornament against an ebony-veneered ground. Each square centres on an octagonal panel of red-backed turtle shell, outlined with triple stringing and surrounded by four spandrel panels, all these separated and surrounded by bandings of laque incrusté scattered with chips of mother-of-pearl. The spandrels are inlaid with coloured composition, with patterns of scrolling foliage and flower heads.
The outer drawers are set into a frame that is veneered on its front face with turtle shell set against red composition. Each drawer front is framed in ebony ripple moulding and set with ebony veneer, inlaid with scrolls of coloured composition, the panels framed with inlaid composition strewn with chips of mother-of-pearl and outlined with triple stringings of ivory and ebony. The centre of each drawer front is set with a cabochon (deep, rounded plaque) of jelotung wood, veneered with turtle shell set against a red ground, and framed with a gilt-brass mount in the form of a laurel wreath.
The centre of the cabinet shows two doors, between three Ionic columns, a low balustrade joining the columns at the base, above a plinth that shows three scrolling consoles supporting the columns. Above the doors the columns support a broken pediment. The whole is veneered in ebony and in turtle shell set against red composition, with mounts of gilt brass. Large cabochons are set in the centre of each door, and smaller ones in the panels below the consoles, and in the centre of the broken pediment. Only those on the two doors, the drawer below them, and on the frieze, are original; the others are replacements.
The outer columns open with the doors, and the central one with the right-hand door. They open on gilt-iron 'parliament' hinges that allow full access to the drawers inside. The inside of the each door is veneered with two square panels, similar to those on the sides of the cabinet, but with the central panel of turtle shell shaped as squares with arched sides, rather than as octagons.
The inner banks of drawers are set within a frame veneered on the front edge with a tropical hardwood, probably snakewood. The drawers are decorated in a similar manner to the outer drawers but with an inlaid central panel in the form of an elongated octagon of turtle shell set against red, outlined with triple stringing of ivory and ebony. They are set centrally with gilt-brass goats’ head, with circular ring handles hanging from their mouths. The outer mouldings to these drawers are plain runs of ebony moulding rather than ripple moulding.
Stand
The stand is of stained pearwood, with decorative veneers and inlay. The six legs (4 on the front, 2 at the back) each show a double baluster above and below a square block, with a second square block at the level of the low stretchers, under which are tall, oval, turned feet. The legs are stained in a blotchy pattern to imitate turtle shell and the square blocks are set with cast-brass mounts in the form of flattened rose heads, these also showing on the sides of the upper blocks.
The frieze shows three panels along the front and one on each side, separated by upright rectangular blocks that are continuations of the legs and project slightly forward of the panels. These panels are veneered with turtle shell set against red composition, these panels outlined with a triple stringing of ivory and ebony and an outer frame of ebony veneer. The panels on the front of the frieze are veneered in ebony that is incised and inlaid with coloured composition at either end, in a design of scrolling foliage and flower heads, derived from East Asian design. In the centre, the ebony is mounted with an oval cabochon (deep, rounded plaque) of wood veneered in turtle shell on a red ground, surrounded by a gilt-brass mount in the form of a wreath. The two side panels are similarly decorated, except that the centres are set with an elongated octagon of inlaid turtle shell, over a red ground, outlined with triple stringing of ivory and ebony. The five apron panels between the legs, under the frieze panels, are roughly triangular in shape with curved and scrolling outlines. Their decoration follows that of the frieze panels, but they are each set centrally with a gilt-brass mask and below each hangs a gilt-brass pendant in the form of a cluster of leaves.
The top surfaces of the plain, rectangular-sectioned stretchers are veneered with ebony and inlaid with coloured composition.

Construction
Cabinet
The cabinet, of softwood, is constructed as a dovetailed box, with additional mouldings pinned on the front and sides at the top and base. Two vertical boards divide the body of the cabinet into three. These are tenoned into the top and base of the box. The dust boards are fitted between these or between these and the sides of the cabinet, running in recesses cut in the boards or the sides. They were inserted from the back before the backboard was set in place. The outer case, the uprights and the dust boards are all faced on the front edge with oak, under a veneer of ebony.
The back is of pine, made up of three horizontal boards, nailed into recesses cut in the sides and base of the carcase. A narrow fillet of wood has been added at the top of the back. Both the back and the top of the cabinet have been painted black, presumably when restoration was undertaken in the nineteenth century.
The nest or frame for the inner drawers was constructed as a separate box, of softwood, probably dove-tailed and with a single, central upright tenoned into the top and bottom and dust-boards added from the back in the same way as the main carcase. It is slightly less deep than the cabinet and there is a gap of approximately 5 cm between it and the back of the carcase, which is visible once the drawers are removed (there being no backboard to the nest). This may be because such nests were made in large numbers and simply fitted into the next cabinet needing them.
The drawers are all in walnut, stained to look like purpleheart, the stain rather unevenly applied and missing in places. They are dovetailed, the framing mouldings pinned to the front face after veneering and decoration had taken place. The bases are glued up into a recess on all four sides.
Stand
The back and front rails of the frieze show small, rectangular recesses at either end on the inside. Similar recesses are on the underside of the back and front stretchers. These were clearly originally for the nuts for captured bolts and one of these remains under the front stretcher at the left (PR) end. The turtle-shell veneers on the blocks above the legs at each end of the stand show filled, circular recesses, indicating the existence at one time of holes for bolts. This system of assembly would allow the stand to be disassembled for packing into two end pieces, a front panel and two back rails, which could be packed flat against one side of the cabinet. The individual panels are jointed with mortise and tenon joints and the frame is now probably held together with dowels.
The side panel of the frieze at the right (PL) was clearly originally made as the front of a drawer (with the recess for the lock and the keyhole visible on the inside), but there is no evidence within the stand for a support for a drawer, so this panel must simply have been re-used from stock. The left (PR) side of the stand has been re-faced on the inside with an additional piece of wood so it is not possible to see whether it has a similar construction.

Repairs and Restorations
This piece has undergone substantial repair and restoration and it is not possible to be certain what changes were made when, before those made when the cabinet entered the Museum collections.
The use of heavy black paint on the top and back of the cabinet suggests work in the middle of the nineteenth century. This is also the most likely date for the placement of the fan-shaped gilt-brass mounts, of Régence design, that were put on the outer drawers (these are now stored separately, within the cabinet. They were replaced by cabochons of turtle shell over wood after 1965, by conservation staff at the Museum. The design was based on cabochons customary on such cabinets and on those on the doors, the two drawer panels below them and on the frieze, which may be original.
When mounts are removed, in nearly every case, multiple pin or screw holes are revealed, often not lining up with the mounts currently in place. This is hard to explain, especially in the case of complex, shaped mounts, that would be difficult to replace, but it nonetheless remains difficult to decide which mounts do date from the seventeenth century.
A gallery on top of the cabinet was said in 1965 not to be original, and was removed. This appears not to have survived, although a coat of arms in boulle marquetry, that may have been a central cresting on this gallery, does survive and is kept in one of the drawers of the cabinet.
The colouring of the inside of drawers to look like purpleheart may have been done to imitate the purpleheart veneers that line the drawers of the table (V&A W.7-1965) which has been associated with this cabinet and may have been with it at Combe Abbey since an associated cabinet and table were listed in the 1769 inventory, in the Green Damask Bedchamber.

Sold Sotheby's, London, 20 November 1964, lot 148. Purchased by the Museum from J.A. Lewis & Son, 136 Brompton Road, SW3 (Registered File 64/3176, on nominal file MA/1/L1298 Lewis, James & Son).

Early history
Possibly bought by William Craven, 1st Earl of Craven (1608-1697), who left England after the execution of Charles I in 1649 to join the court of Elizabeth of Bohemia (1596-1662), sister of Charles I and widow of Frederick V, Elector Palatine and King of Bohemia (1596-1632). He returned to Britain after the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 and planned to build a large palace at Hamstead Marshall, Berkshire, for the widowed queen. After she died in 1662 he continued to build the house as a memorial to her. This cabinet and its related table (W.7-1965) may have been intended for that house, which was designed by the Dutch-born architect Sir Balthasar Gerbier (1592-1663) as a miniature version of her old home at Heidelburg Castle in Germany and took thirty years to construct. It should be noted, however, that the table and the cabinet are not a set, the workmanship and materials of the table being of higher quality than those of the cabinet, and it is always possible that one or other were acquired by the family later, to support a sense of family history. Or it just may be that two pieces, of differing quality, were purchased. Both would have been fashionable objects when Hamstead Marshall was planned. The house was burnt to the ground in 1718, and it is arguable that such pieces would not have survived. The table has an inscription in English, dated 1766. Both pieces show signs of restoration, that on the cabinet probably dating from the early 19th century (with a new gallery and coat of arms added), which could suggest purchase at that time, although it is equally possible that it was restored by the family then. The interior of the drawers on the cabinet are stained a deep purple, which may have been intended to match the veneers of purpleheart that line the drawers of the table.

The pieces were later at Combe Abbey, Warwickshire, which the Craven family owned until 1923, The cabinet is illustrated in a photograph of the East Cloister taken ca. 1904 (see Michael Hall, The English Country House from the Archives of Country Life. New York, 1991, London, 2001). The photos certainly show a house with a collection that had been added to throughout the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. The inventory of Combe in 1739 lists both a cabinet and a table in ebony (in the Nursery and Closetts, and in the Great Parlour respectively) but the description is not close enough to identify these. A duo of cabinet and table 'inlaid wit Tortishell, Pearl, Ivery, & Ornamented with Brass' is listed in the 1769 inventory, in the Green Damask Bedchamber.

Repairs and modifications
The cabinet required considerable conservation after it came to the Museum, including the replacement of 19th-century mounts with the raised oval cabochons in turtle shell, following 17th-century practice. Oval mounts to attach these were made by Sperring & Best. Details of the conservation are on departmental files.

The fragment of cresting (W.8:22-1965) was found inside the cabinet during conservation in 2013. It was in poor condition but was stabilized and conserved by a student at the City and Guilds College, London, under the supervision of the V&S Conservator Shayne Rivers. It is believed to have been added during the 19th-century restoration of the piece and perhaps to have been removed when it first came to the Museum.

Commentary
Such cabinets were made in very large numbers in Antwerp and in all sorts of qualities, for export throughout Europe. Such a piece was known at the time as a 'cantoor'. The use of turtle shell became a standard decoration. It was usually backed with red mastic to increase the richness of effect and it has been suggested that the colour was admired because it suggested the very expensive amber cabinets that were made in Gdansk at the time and were much prized by rich collectors. The use of high relief bosses, to which the turtle shell was shaped by heating, was also a speciality of Antwerp. Sometimes the bosses were carved into shapes such as hearts before the turtle shell was applied. The brass mounts on such cabinets, which were not usually gilded, were clearly mass-produced by casting or stamping and do not show the fine chiselling of detail that was used to finish mounts in other cabinet-making centres such as Paris.

Comparable pieces
A writing box with similar decoration was sold at Sotheby's Haute Epoque sale, London, 31 October 2006, lot 332. It was dated to the first half of the 17th century.

This cabinet-on-stand has for a long time been associated with a table that is also in the V&A (W.7-1965). Such pairings of a table with a cabinet were common in the 17th century, although these two pieces may have been brought together at a later date. They are decorated with a technique known as lacque incrusté (inlaid lacquer) that imitates Asian lacquer, reflecting Antwerp’s close trading links with East Asia.

In this technique the piece of furniture was veneered in ebony that was then incised and filled with a composition made up with shellac and various colouring agents. In certain areas the surface might be scattered, while soft, with chips of marble or mother-of-pearl, then polished to imitate namban lacquer, which was made in Japan for the export market. The cabinet is also veneered with plaques of turtle-shell, set against a red ground.

The two pieces came from the collection of the Earls of Craven at Combe Abbey, Warwickshire. They may have been bought in Antwerp by the 1st Earl of Craven (1606-1697). He was a close friend and supporter of Elizabeth of Bohemia (1596-1662), the sister of Charles I (1600-1649) and was with her in exile in the Southern Netherlands between 1649 and 1660. It is also possible that she gave or bequeathed one or both of the pieces to him.

W.8:1 to 24-1965