17th century cabinet
*The cabinet sold on June 8, 2016 for €4,000. Someone got a very good deal!As you all know, I've been browsing the web sites of auction houses, particularly on the European continent, looking at samplers. It's a great way to learn about what's out there, what the estimates are and what they finally sell for.Last week I stumbled across something I never thought I'd see outside of a museum, much less for sale. The description in the online catalogue is:"An exceptional 17thC Flemish ebony and rosewood cabinet-on-stand, silk embroidered inside, the base ebonised and from a later period, H 156 - W 73,5 - D 47,5 cm (restoration; glass and parts of the embroidery missing)"Interesting, right? But the photographs are what really caught my attention. (Please note: the right and left arrows on the photos do not work. Scroll down for more photos).
It's such an elegant shape and would look stunning in any room in my home! Really, it would!
The description clearly says it's "for restoration". I would love to restore this piece - if I had the skills! In addition to the embroidery that needs replacing on two of the panels, there is work to do on the cabinet itself.
The mirror inside the top box is missing, but one could always find an antique mirror. Of course, maybe not a 17th century mirror of the right size...but it would be fun looking!
Of course, theses are not the things that captured my attention. It's the embroidery. Stunning, beautiful, creative, humorous, delightful...my superlatives could go on forever!
Look at the swans on this panel. Couched down metal threads for their entire bodies. And the trunks on the palm tress are the same technique.
In addition to swans, there are two panels embroidered with sea creatures. As it's a Flemish cabinet, this doesn't surprise me. Tales of sea creatures would have been part of this persons life living in that part of Europe in the 17th century.
The water appears to be embroidered using blue silk purl couched down onto the fabric. Or maybe something else? I wish I could see it in person to really look at it closely!
Here the waves look as if the embroiderer has used multiple threads in her needle and couched them down between the metal threads. I'm not sure if it's silk purl or huge French knots that make up the grass below the trees and at the top of the trees.
The hillock on this panel is one of my favorite things in the piece - the shading of the threads the embroiderer has used to invoke stone topped with grass on which the birds are standing. And do you see the snake coming out of the tree?
The panels on either side of the cabinet have been removed and one can only imagine what has happened to them. Perhaps, because they would have been large enough to mount and frame, they were remove and found a place on someone's wall. I suppose the cabinet as a piece of furniture would have gone out of style at some point, but the embroidery was large enough to be framed an hung on the wall.
I can just imagine putting all our treasure inside the various drawers. I wonder what treasures the original owner would have put inside.
The embroidery that lies behind the inner door is still as fresh and bright as it would have been hundreds of years ago.The estimate for this piece is between € 3,000 and € 5,000 with bids starting at € 2,400. When you consider that a new, reproduction cabinet, made today, not on a stand, can be purchased from for € 3380 this seems like a steal to me. However, it may go for much, much more of course!Do I want to own this? Well, yes! But also, no... Cost aside, owning something like this would require me to be it's caretaker and custodian. I would feel obliged to restore it and I don't have the woodworking skills to do that properly, nor do I believe we have the funds to pay someone to do a first rate job.It's hard to know it's out there, that someone will soon be the owner of something that I never imagined would even be for sale and that it won't be me. But I wish them all the joy a piece like this will bring to whomever wins the auction.