Cabinet
possibly 'VBL'
Category
Furniture
Date
circa 1625 - circa 1660
Materials
Softwood, deal, poplar, rosewood veneers, ebony veneers, mirror glass, painted glass, paper, ivory, gilt metal
Measurements
86 x 136 x 42 cm
Place of origin
Naples
Order this imageCollection
Melford Hall, Suffolk
NT 926550.1
Summary
A reverse-painted glass, rosewood and ebony cabinet, Italian, probably Naples, mid-17th century. Its associated rosewood stand NT 926550.2. Of slightly breakfront form, and topped by a moulded cornice, above a central section of a deep drawer painted with a lute player, a slender drawer below. This arrangement above an aedicule opening to reveal seven drawers, one fitted with an arched piece of mirror glass, with two pull-out flanking panels each revealing three slender drawers. This central section between two banks of four short drawers each with applied mouldings with gilt sheet metal mounts spacing a pair of painted panels. The panels throughout depicting gods and goddesses, including Mercury, and Italian scenes, and set behind with paper (some of this is printed material) to give luminosity to the painting. The ends of the cabinet once with a handle, the sites to each end now filled with a pair of engraved ivory plaques depicting scenes from the Bible. -- It has been noted that the painted panels to this cabinet may well have been executed by an artist known only by the initials VBL, who worked in Naples in the second quarter of the 17th century. It is unusual for cabinets of this type to be veneered in rosewood and commentators have speculated that the cabinet might have been re-veneered in the 18th (or possibly the 19th) century, when mounted on its accompanying rosewood and ebonized stand [NT 926550.2].
Provenance
Date of acquisition not recorded, but part of the Hyde Parker collection and by descent to Sir Richard Hyde Parker, 12th Bt. (b. 1937). Transferred to the National Trust by the Treasury in 1960.
Makers and roles
possibly 'VBL', painter