Lot Essay
This tabernacle compartment, with its voluted pediment and truss-supported Doric columns, is framed by drawers with mosaic plaques of pietre dure incorporating oval medallions of pietra paesina ruins is bordered by ripple-moulded ebony corresponding to those of a large 17th Century Augsburg cabinet in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg, while similar drawers feature on a related Augsburg cabinet at Rosenborg Palace, Copenhagen (H. Kreisel, Die Kunst des deutschen Möbels, Munich, 1968, vol. I, figs. 372 and 365, respectively).
Large marble panels, featuring the rare combination of pietra dura 'Ruins' on a pietra paesina ground, are now framed at the sides, but may originally have embellished the cabinet's doors. These vignettes to the 'paesaggio' views of the early 17th Century such as the pair of panels from the Grand Ducal workshops in Florence, now displayed in the Green Vaults at Dresden (A. González-Palacios, Il Tempio del Gusto, Milan, 1986, figs. 178 and 179) and on a cabinet which was commissioned by the Bavarian elector Max Emanuel (d. 1726) in 1680 (G. Himmelheber, 'Kabinettschänke, Bayerisches Nationalmuseum', Catalogue, Munich, 1977, pp. 59-61, figs. 64-65). They also relate to works produced in the early 17th Century by Cosimo and, more so, Giovanni Castrucci in Prague, who established their workshop in 1592. Giovanni uses a more loosely conceived type of mosaic and a panel depicting a rocky lanscape of similar style, is in the Umelecko-prumyslove muzeum v Praze, Prague (E. Fucikova ed., Rudolf II and Prague, London, 1997, p. 215, fig. 15.6).
At the time of the sale of this cabinet in 1856 it was described as:
A small carved ebony cabinet, with folding doors, enclosing a smaller cabinet, surrounded by twelve small drawers with slabs of Mocoa agate-on stand
Interestingly, this description indicates that the cabinet still had two doors at that time. It is therefore possible that the cabinet was altered in two stages and that the mounts are part of an earlier alteration.
John-Samuel Wanley Erle-Drax-Grosvenor (d. 1887) was an eccentic politician, who furnished the vast galleries of Olantigh in a truely eclectic fashion combining objects of widely different styles. Shortly after his death the house was badly damaged by fire and the contents were dispersed.
Large marble panels, featuring the rare combination of pietra dura 'Ruins' on a pietra paesina ground, are now framed at the sides, but may originally have embellished the cabinet's doors. These vignettes to the 'paesaggio' views of the early 17th Century such as the pair of panels from the Grand Ducal workshops in Florence, now displayed in the Green Vaults at Dresden (A. González-Palacios, Il Tempio del Gusto, Milan, 1986, figs. 178 and 179) and on a cabinet which was commissioned by the Bavarian elector Max Emanuel (d. 1726) in 1680 (G. Himmelheber, 'Kabinettschänke, Bayerisches Nationalmuseum', Catalogue, Munich, 1977, pp. 59-61, figs. 64-65). They also relate to works produced in the early 17th Century by Cosimo and, more so, Giovanni Castrucci in Prague, who established their workshop in 1592. Giovanni uses a more loosely conceived type of mosaic and a panel depicting a rocky lanscape of similar style, is in the Umelecko-prumyslove muzeum v Praze, Prague (E. Fucikova ed., Rudolf II and Prague, London, 1997, p. 215, fig. 15.6).
At the time of the sale of this cabinet in 1856 it was described as:
A small carved ebony cabinet, with folding doors, enclosing a smaller cabinet, surrounded by twelve small drawers with slabs of Mocoa agate-on stand
Interestingly, this description indicates that the cabinet still had two doors at that time. It is therefore possible that the cabinet was altered in two stages and that the mounts are part of an earlier alteration.
John-Samuel Wanley Erle-Drax-Grosvenor (d. 1887) was an eccentic politician, who furnished the vast galleries of Olantigh in a truely eclectic fashion combining objects of widely different styles. Shortly after his death the house was badly damaged by fire and the contents were dispersed.