CIRCA 1820-40, RE-USING LATE 16TH/EARLY 17TH CENTURY CARVED ELEMENTS

The decorative scheme of this cabinet is based on that of the Intaglio A Bambocci, popular in Liguria and Genoa in the late 16th and 17th centuries. A related example in the Castello Sforzesco, Milan, also featuring a cartouche flanked by putti to the central upper frieze is illustrated by S. Colombo in both L'Arte del Mobile in Italia, Milan, 1975, fig. 98, and L'Arte del Legno e del Mobile in Italia, Turin, 1981, fig. 271. In the case of the present example the arms carved to the central cartouche are those of the city of Madrid with a knight's helmet crest, suggesting perhaps that when this cabinet was re-constructed in the first half of the 19th century using the carvings of an earlier cabinet it was done so in Spain and on the orders of a noble family of Madrid.