Carved and inlaid walnut table cabinet with twin front doors and hinged lid, enclosing 10 drawers. With inlay on the sides and lid, the doors and interior with carved Renaissance ornament in boxwood(?) applied over red silk.

Carved and inlaid walnut cabinet with twin front doors and hinged lid, enclosing 10 drawers; the doors and lid with low relief carved busts over textile.

Design
Cabinet of rectangular chest form with twin hinged doors, and hinged lid on a low walnut plinth (19c in date), with carving in walnut and boxwood(?) applied over red silk. The front and sides of the lid are formed by applied, mitred edges carved with integral mouldings (egg and dart, dentil and layered leaf).

Each door exterior is carved with a series of applied mouldings: leaf (walnut), leafy scrolls (box), leaf and dart (walnut), guilloche (box), ogee with leaf and dart (walnut). These surround a central panel with an applied boxwood(?) profile classical head (facing inwards) pegged into a granular surface ground punched into the solid. On the sides which are both fitted with a wrought iron bail handle (with traces of gilding) on quatrefoil backplates, a plain central panel is surrounded by the same outer mouldings. The lid and back exteriors are inlaid in a pale wood with a regular geometrical pattern of interlacing X and + forms. The underside is plain. The plinth has been created by the addition of four nailed sections of moulding with integral leaf-carved moulding, adding 5cm to the height of the cabinet.

The interior face of each door is carved with a series of mouldings: leaf (walnut), leafy scrolls (boxwood(?) over red silk). Applied centrally is an openwork boxwood panel over red silk, with a roundel with helmeted male profile head, facing inwards. Most of the silk on the right door is a pale brown colour, and the darker colour of the carved roundel (carved in two sections not one as is the left door) suggests that the right door carving and silk is replaced, the silk presumably red originally but now faded, possibly as a result of fugitive dye.

Opening the doors reveals a C-shaped shallow tray with moulded and carved edges, above 10 drawers arranged in 4 tiers (from top: x4 (two recessed behind a dustboard with geometrical inlay), x3, x2, x 1). The front edges of the dustboards and drawer dividers are decorated with an applied boxwood(?) reel ornament. The fronts of the drawers are decorated with applied boxwood(?) arabesque carving over red silk and applied, mitred mouldings with carved acanthus (walnut), with a vase-shaped, cast brassy handle.

The inside of the lid is decorated with a large rectangular panel surrounded by a guilloche moulding (boxwood, a darker section top left apparently replaced), within a leaf and dart moulding (walnut). The panel shows a triple arcade of three flattened arches enriched with leafy ornament (applied boxwood), each arch enclosing a male bearded bust (applied boxwood) on a lattice background carved in the solid. The central bust is full-faced, with grapes in his hair (Bacchus), while the two flanking busts are profile (facing inwards) with elaborate helmets, on the back of which is mounted a smaller, bearded mask in profile, giving a Janus-like effect.

Construction
The back and sides consist of solid boards, with the back dovetailed and pegged to the sides. The base is nailed up into the sides and back, and consists of two softwood planks, with a front strip of walnut (replaced) with integral acanthus carving along its front upper face. The internal drawer unit is supported on 4 horizontal battens nailed (or glued) to the inside face of each side, with grooves to receive the 3 full-width walnut dustboards, which stabilise the whole. Drawer dividers are nailed through the dustboards. The lid is a solid walnut board with applied mouldings on the front and sides, held on two ring hinges. Each door is held on two strap hinges of gilded metal, tenoned into the door and cabinet side. The left door is fitted with a nailed metal finger spring, into which a metal fitting (now missing) on the right door engaged. (There is no evidence that a lock was ever fitted. The cabinet would have been opened from the lif, giving access to the door catch.

Drawers
Walnut fronts, sides and backs with oak bottoms (a single board which is grained side to side for the 3 larger drawers, but front to back for the 7 smaller ones), and a single cast brass(?) pull. The sides dovetailed to the backs and nailed to the fronts at a notched rebate. The bottoms are nailed up on all four sides, which pins the joint between the sides and the fronts. The fronts with red silk overlaid by a single piece of openwork (boxwood?) carving, apparently glued(?), and applied walnut mouldings.

Modifications
The plinth consists of four dovetailed sections of walnut with integral carved mouldings (of a visibly different character to the other exterior carving), nailed up into the carcase. The walnut strip along the front of the base may also be replaced.
Much of the applied boxwood ornament, and silk on the inside of the right door appears to be replaced, as is a small section of guilloche moulding on the lid interior.
Missing a door catch on the right door.

Bequeathed by George Salting

Salting Bequest
‘Slightly worn and wormeaten’.

This object was owned by George Salting (1839 - 1909), a specialist in Asian pocelain, who loaned his collections to the South Kensington Museum in 1874 and bequeathed them on his death in 1909. RP1910/4098.
"Cabinet of carved and inlaid walnut decorated with applied carvings. Spanish; first half of the 16th century. The cabinet has a hinged lid and two hinged doors in front. The inside of the lid is decorated with an arcade of three flattened arches enriched with leafage, each enclosing a male bearded head; the outside of the lid is inlaid with a geometrical pattern. Each of the doors is carved on the inside and the outside with a head framed by borders of leaf ornament. The interior is fitted with ten drawers, the upper now being re-ceded in the middle. The front of the drawers are decorated with applied arabesque carvings. On top is a sunk compartment. There is a small drop-handle on each side."

Salting's interest in Renaissance furniture seems to have begun in 1883, and waned after 1895, though he makes two expensive purchases in 1906 and 1909.

In July 1884 he bought 'a Spanish Cabinet with medallion portraits £200' from George Donaldson, 106 New Bond St, IMPORTER OF HIGH CLASS WORKS OF ART.

Comparable cabinets featured in:
ALONSO, María Paz Aguiló: El Mueble en España, Siglos XVI - XVII. (Madrid 1993).
BURR, Grace Hardendorff: Hispanic Furniture (New York, 1964).

Cabinet on original base, Catalonia (Monestir de Pedralbes, Barcelona 115270); 43 X 63,5 x 35 cm, walnut and boxwood.

Bridal chests (or hembras) of similar form to this cabinet were made in Spain from about 1500. They were among the first pieces of European furniture to be fitted with drawers. From about 1540, they evolved into cabinets and writing desks with a single, fall-front, known as an escritorio. A number of chests similar to this one, with applied carving and profile heads are thought to have been made in Catalonia, Aragon (NW Spain) and the Ballearic islands. The plinth under this cabinet was added, probably c1880-90 along with minor ornamental restorations, but overall this example is in substantially original condition.

This cabinet once belonged to George Salting (1839–1909), whose collections ranging from Italian Renaissance bronzes to Asian porcelain were bequeathed to the Museum in 1909.

W.195-1910