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拍品專文
Cabinets elaborately conceived to display precious stones - sometimes carved or with inlaid designs - and mounted with sculpural gilt- bronzes were produced in major centers, notably Florence and Rome. These opulent objects were favored by a growing population of wealthy families primarily in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This cabinet, inset in a geometric design displaying a colorful array of agates, lapis lazuli and other precious stones framed within ebony borders, relates to a table cabinet produced in Venice in the mid-17th century illustrated in A. González-Palacios, I Mobili Italiani, Milano, 1996, pp.44-45. Other more elaborate seventeenth century cabinets with similar oval decoration but featuring a central painted marble or pietra dura panel include those illustrated in A. González-Palacios, Fasto Romano, Roma, 1991, no. 72, p.150 and col.pl.XXXIII and E. Colle, ed., I Mobili di Palazzo Pitti: Il periodo dei Medici 1537-1737, Firenze, 1996, no.71, pp.227-230. The latter cabinet is in the Pitti Palace, Florence.
This cabinet was probably adapted in England in the nineteenth century when these objects were highly sought after by connoisseurs, most notably William Beckford at Fonthill Abbey and George Lucy at Charlecote Park, who purchased extensively at the 1823 Fonthill Abbey sale. The reconfigured cabinet doors on this piece bear English lockplates.
This cabinet was probably adapted in England in the nineteenth century when these objects were highly sought after by connoisseurs, most notably William Beckford at Fonthill Abbey and George Lucy at Charlecote Park, who purchased extensively at the 1823 Fonthill Abbey sale. The reconfigured cabinet doors on this piece bear English lockplates.