Live Auction 5089Italian Banks of Distinction
A GERMAN EBONY, IVORY, SILVER METAL AND TORTOISESHELL TABLE CABINET
Lot 136

A GERMAN EBONY, IVORY, SILVER METAL AND TORTOISESHELL TABLE CABINET

17TH CENTURY

Closed13 November 2007

Price Realised

GBP 26,900

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A GERMAN EBONY, IVORY, SILVER METAL AND TORTOISESHELL TABLE CABINET
17TH CENTURY
Of architectural form, surmounted by a balustrade with flower filled urns, and with an arrangement of long and short drawers each with a ripple-moulded and raised front, decorated with cut and pressed metal scenes and divided by columns supporting a pediment with various standing and seated figures, the central arched and mirrored niche with an ebony and ivory parquetry floor, the sides with further raised and similarly decorated panels, losses
25in. (63cm.) high; 24in. (61cm.) wide; 11in. (28cm.) deep

The Property of a European Collection, Sotheby's, New York, 27 October 1990, lot 43.

Specialist note

The Renaissance style cabinet has a triumphal-arch façade with emblematic figures of Night and Day couched on its temple-pediment; and accompanied by cupids standing on the balustraded cornice above composite columns. Its mirrorred tabernacle compartment reveals a triumphal arched niche with a bas-relief of the Triumph of Venus derived from the Judgement of Paris, while the fretted medallion bas-relief of the base appears to depict a scene from the Trojan wars. The triumph of Ceres, goddess of Agriculture, with the laying aside of arms, is celebrated in one of the other drawer medallions.
Related Augsburg cabinets are discussed by D.Alter in Die Geschichte des Augsburger Kabinettschrank, Augsburg, 1986.