Lot Essay
This cabinet, with its distinctive tortoiseshell veneers and floral decoration of laque incrusté, relates to pieces made in the Low Countries during the middle part of the 17th century. C. Wilks, in Western Furniture, 1350 to the Present Day in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 1996, pp. 64-5, discusses the technique of lightly engraving a veneered surface with scrolling foliate designs and filling the areas in with a composition of brightly colored bits. This type of decoration, which was probably done in immitation of scagliola, was developed to rival the works by the Italian and German cabinetmakers and was a specialty of Antwerp. A closely related Flemish cabinet from circa 1650-1670 is illustrated in M. Riccardi-Cubitt, Un Art Européen Le Cabinet de la Renaissance à l'époque Moderne, Paris, 1992, p. 60.