拍品专文
This cabinet's ebony and marble-inlaid façade is derived from "Mannerist" architecture of 16th Century Italy. The columned portico, with central ædicule frames a statue of Charity, surmounted, by Fame; while figures of Mars and Minerva stand in niches centring the recessed wings which are of triumphal arch form. The pediment of the scroll-buttressed tabernacle, in the galleried cornice, displays an armorial cartouche headed by the coronet of a Count.
The 19th Century saw a revival of Pietra Dura inlay in furniture; often of very high quality, they attempted to emulate examples from the 16th and 17th Centuries, housed in Palazzi and museums.
In design, this cabinet relates to one made circa 1680 which was in the collection of William Beckford of Fonthill, Wiltshire, which Beckford called his "Bernini cabinet", believing the designer to be Bernini himself (sold lot 232, September 1832, Phillips). The cabinet has a similar scroll-buttressed raised tabernacle and incorporates fewer though larger pieces of sculpture; Beckford's cabinet also has a projecting central façade though overall is less architectonic. The inlay on Beckford's piece is comparable; it was most recently sold at Sotheby's New York (lot 87, 7th Dec. 1991).
The 19th Century saw a revival of Pietra Dura inlay in furniture; often of very high quality, they attempted to emulate examples from the 16th and 17th Centuries, housed in Palazzi and museums.
In design, this cabinet relates to one made circa 1680 which was in the collection of William Beckford of Fonthill, Wiltshire, which Beckford called his "Bernini cabinet", believing the designer to be Bernini himself (sold lot 232, September 1832, Phillips). The cabinet has a similar scroll-buttressed raised tabernacle and incorporates fewer though larger pieces of sculpture; Beckford's cabinet also has a projecting central façade though overall is less architectonic. The inlay on Beckford's piece is comparable; it was most recently sold at Sotheby's New York (lot 87, 7th Dec. 1991).