Louis XIII Cabinet

CultureFrench

Dateca. 1620

MediumCarved ebony with 19th-century gilt-bronze mounts

DimensionsOverall: 83 × 70 × 24 1/2 inches (210.82 × 177.8 × 62.23 cm)

Credit LinePurchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust

Object number45-16

On View

On view

Gallery Location

Collections

Architecture, Design and Decorative Arts

Terms

DescriptionMade by Italian cabinet makers in France. In two parts: lower (credence) is large cupboard: upper has small cupboard containing miniature stage effect, drawers on either side. Elaborately carved all over with mythological subjects, putti and escutcheons. Ormolu trim.Gallery Label

Gallery Label

Made for a grand room in an aristocratic residence, this imposing cabinet of exotic ebony is covered with ripple moldings, incised foliage and mythological scenes. The cabinet's upper central panels depict Cephalus, shown on the left panel, receiving a magical spear and hunting dog from his wife Procris who is shown on the right panel mortally wounded by the same spear. Scenes from Ovid's Metamorphoses decorate the lower panels: Perseus riding Pegasus rescues the princess Andromeda on the left, and the goddess Diana bathes as prince Acteon watches on the right. The cabinet was originally a chest on a stand. The stand has been lost, and the doors that now form the lower cabinet originally covered the small drawers now visible above.

Provenance

With Symons, by October 13, 1931 [1];

Purchased from Symons by French and Company, New York, stock no. 17370A, October 13, 1931-May 7, 1945 [2];

Purchased from French and Company by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1945.

NOTES:

[1] This is probably Henry Symons and Co., a London dealer and collector from whom French and Company bought other furniture.

[2] Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, French and Company Stock Sheets, box 17, folder 2.

Published References

Ross E. Taggart and George L. McKenna, eds., Handbook of the Collections in The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Missouri, vol. 1, Art of the Occident, 5^th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1973), 226 (repro.).

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