Small Two-Body Buffet Decorated with Bird Quills

This stipo, little Italian cabinet made of walnut and walnut burl, is a remarkable example of Mannerism applied to decorative arts during the late 16th century. While the Manneris...

Former collection Altounian At the beginning of the reign of Henri II (1547-1559) the furniture’s ornamentation evolves. The few medieval motifs that were still used are eventually relinquished. Furniture becomes more sober showcasing moulded panels and perfect architecture. Cabinet-makers use ornaments such as curved fluted or plain columns, feather quills, roses or winged putti heads. High-relief carving becomes more scarce and compositions lighter. To that end cabinet-makers draw inspiration from Fontainebleau motifs filtering them and adapting them to French taste. During this period cabinet-makers turn into a kind of architects. Indeed the architectural balance of furniture is the centre of their concerns. The study of Antic formulas is then a necessity. From this care given to proportions appear refined cabinets with pure lines. This style is characteristic of the reign of Henri II and disappears soon after under the regency of Catherine de Medici (1560-1574) when an abundance of high and low-relief ornaments comes back on furnitures. This two-bodies cabinet...

Renaissance cabinet with a quill-feather decor. ORIGIN: FRANCE PERIOD: 16th CENTURY Height : 162 cm Length : 134 cm Depth : 54.5 cm Blond w...

IMPORTANT CABINET WITH TWO BODY IN BLACKENED WOOD CARVED AND ENGRAVED ORIGIN: FRANCE PERIOD: 17TH CENTURY Height: 188 cm Width: 135 cm Depth: 53.5 cm Blackened wood and veneer: rosewood, ebony, pear, mahogany Framed in oak wood A real ceremonial piece of furniture, this two-part cabinet opens with two historiated panels and two drawers in the upper part and two leaves and two belt drawers in the lower part. Richly worked, it offers both inside and outside a floral decoration, finely engraved which contrasts with the importance given to geometric lines. This duality, typical of this type of cabinet, confirms its dating and its origin. In addition, the gilded metal locks and fittings enhance the sumptuous trait of this piece of furniture and also contribute to its ornamentation. Furniture of predilection for “enclosing the most precious things” (Furetière, Dictionnaire, 1690) the appearance of cabinets in the 16th century accompanied the development of wunderkammern, these cabinets of curiosities enriched both by the vogue for the antique and by distant expeditions which bring back with them natural wonders and rare testimonies of distant civilisations. The curious, combining fortune and culture, brings together antique medals, rare plants, fossils, or oriental ornaments. This meeting of pieces which embodies much more than their material reality, a subjective evocation of all the riches of the earth and all the knowledge of men, acts in the eyes of its owner like a microcosm of which he is the master and which he enjoys according to his will. This is how the first cabinets were designed to be transportable, often wooden structures calling for riches only those they housed for a collector who refused to part with them, even temporarily. In the 17th century, the cabinet gained in technical complexity and luxurious materials until it could no longer be moved itself and became a prized and expensive collector’s item...

RARE RENAISSANCE CABINET WITH FEATHER QUILL AND FENESTRATION DECORATION ORIGIN: FRANCE PERIOD: EARLY 16th CENTURY DIMENSIONS : Height : 178 cm Length : 145 cm Depth : 58 cm Walnu...

Small cabinet by L’ecole De Fontainebleau Incrusted with marble tablets Origin : VAL-DE-LOIRE, France Period : 16th century Measures: Height : 170...

An Anglo-Indian style two part mango wood buffet à deux-corps with four doors, floral and bird themed bone inlaid décor, and flaming patterns on the doors. This Anglo-Indian style ma...

A mid-19th century Swedish painted wood buffet. This Swedish buffet features two drawers ornate with ring pulls, over two doors. This Swedish buffet from circa 1850 is raised on brac...

Particularly high buffet, of great storage capacity, characterized by the unusual horizontal division into two compartments with different heights, closed ...

A richly colored, hand painted, polychrome 18th century Italian two door cabinet.

20th century French walnut buffet with two doors and three central drawers.

Buffet sideboard with flap in Renaissance style of the 1950s, in walnut and walnut folder. With two drawer sides, the central stage with internal shelf, two side doors with internal ...