A pietre dure cabinet from The Gilbert Collection
Pietre dure: Florence, late 17th century
Cabinet and stand: England, late 18 th century
Pietre dure, pietre tenere, ebonised oak, mahogany, brass, gilt metal
cabinet: 65.1 x 76.5 x 41.9 cm, table: 82.6 x 81.3 x 41.9 cm
A cabinet with eleven pietre dure and pietre tenere mosaic panels on the front, with Tuscan landscape views on a
background of Albarese limestone. This cabinet was made in England in the late eighteenth century and is typical
of the furniture inspired by the taste of travellers who, during their Grand Tour of Italy, bought Florentine mosaic
work in the Grand Ducal workshops and had it set in made-to-measure cabinets on their return. The landscape
panels are linked to those on a cabinet documented as being in the Villa del Poggio Imperiale after 1691. They
demonstrate the interest in landscape subjects in the Grand Ducal workshops during the late seventeenth century.
Similar types of panels can vbe found on early eighteenth-century German furniture. Examples include cabinets
from Ambras castle, Braunschweig and a desk in the castle at Wiesentheid.
This cabinet was exhibited in Los Angeles in 1991 and the cabinet is illustrated in the book
The Gilbert Collection – Hardstones.
Provenance:
Partridge Fine Arts, London 1985
This cabinet belonged to The Gilbert Collection, Victoria and Albert Museum, London 1991
Private Collection Italy
Literature:
This cabinet is illustrated in Anna Maria Massinelli, The Gilbert Collection – Hardstones,
Philip Wilson Publishers in association with The Gilbert Collection, fig. 5
Baldini, Giusti and Pampaloni Martelli 1979, fig. 164
Kreisel 1970, fig. 186
Kunsthistorisches Museum 1987, p. 33