Venetian Cabinet

"Stipo" cabinet in wood and hard stoneCabinet consisting of a lacquered wooden structure decorated with arabesque motifs, cartouches and gilded and polychrome foliage. The architectural facade opens onto seven drawers. It is composed of a large central triangular pediment and four main jasper columns. Between these columns are three small pediments (two triangular and one segmental) overlooking small columns with foliate decoration. The frames of the hard stones (jasper and lapis lazuli) and the painted mother-of-pearl are decorated with gilded scrolls on a black background, including small flowers and foliate motifs. The ogee lid opens onto a mirror and storage compartments painted in red. Venice, late 16th century Height: 43.5 cm Width: 47.5 cm Depth: 35.7 cm The gilded motifs on a black background that decorate our cabinet are characteristic of the Ottoman influence on Venetian art, which developed thanks to the numerous objects that reached the Serenissima, either as spoils from the frequent wars that opposed it to the Turks, or thanks to its important commercial exchanges with the Ottoman world. There are thus around fifteen cabinets of this type, mixing stone veneer hard and oriental-style painted ornaments. We can mention in particular the one, very similar to ours, preserved at the Castello Sforzesco, in Milan (inv. Mobili 99), or that of the Museum für Angewandte Kunst, in Vienna (inv. H 848). See also the work of Hans Huth, Lacquer of the West. The History of a Craft and an Industry, 1550-1950, Chicago, 1971, pl. 13-20, or the study by Ernst J. Grube, "Venetian “lacquer” and bookbinding in the 16th century", in the catalogue of the exhibition held at the Institut du Monde Arabe, Venice and the Orient, 828-1797, Paris, 2006, pp. 230-243.