Skip to main content
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 5

Italian 17th Century Walnut and Leather Stool

More From This Seller

View All
Cerberus, Italy, 17th Century
Located in Bruxelles, BE
Cerberus Black painted stone Italy, 17th century Measures: 80 x 69 x 36cm (one head missing) Cerberus, cruel monster, fierce and strange, Through his wide threefold throat barks as a dog Over the multitude immers'd beneath. His eyes glare crimson, black his unctuous beard, His belly large, and claw'd the hands, with which He tears the spirits, flays them, and their limbs Piecemeal disparts (Dante, Inferno, Canto VI). Cerberus figure seated, in his role of ferocious guardian of the underworld; he shows a nervous musculature, an adherent skin which reveals the ribs, long and robust limbs; his heads are broad and the eyes set well apart. Painted in black to amplify his menacing look, the infernal guardian is depicted with his famous attributes, writhing his heads, growling and barking furiously. Cerberus, in Greek mythology, was the monstrous watchdog of the underworld – also known as the “hound of Hades” – preventing the dead from leaving, and making sure that those who entered never left. A child of Typhon and Echidna, he was part of a monstrous family, which included Orthus, the Lernaean Hydra, and the Chimaera as well. Only on three occasions Cerberus was tricked by visitors of Hades: Heracles did it with his strength, Orpheus with his music. In "The Inferno", Dante places Cerberus as the guardian of the third circle of Hell. With his three mouths, Dante saw Cerberus as a beast that was synonymous with the sin of Gluttony. Virgil gets past the monster by throwing mud in his three mouths, temporarily choking him. Very rare are the representations of Cerberus in ancient statuary...
Category

Antique 17th Century Italian Renaissance Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Stone

Cerberus, Italy, 17th Century
$18,925 Sale Price
25% Off
Walnut Table "a lira" - Tuscany, 17th century
Located in Bruxelles, BE
Walnut Table "a lira" - Tuscany, XVII century Table “a lira” Walnut Tuscany, XVIIth century 71 X 90 X 49,5 cm Beautiful patina.
Category

Antique 17th Century Italian Renaissance Desks and Writing Tables

Materials

Walnut

Bacchus - Southern Italy, late 17th century
Located in Bruxelles, BE
Bacchus 
Southern Italy, late 17th century
 Alabaster Sculpture
 H: 20 cm A finely carved 17th-century alabaster sculpture of a naked Bacchus. This Italian alabaster figure depicts ...
Category

Antique 17th Century Italian Baroque Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Alabaster

Renaissance Marble Portrait - Northern Italy, 17th century
Located in Bruxelles, BE
Renaissance Marble Portrait Northern Italy, 17th century, inspired by antiquity Marble 36 x 13 cm (including the marble pedestal) This Renaissance portrait head of a young man, sl...
Category

Antique 17th Century Italian Renaissance Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Marble

Boiled Leather Trunk, Spanish, 17th Century
Located in Bruxelles, BE
Leather trunk Spanish, 17th century Boiled Leather, wood and iron Measures: 22 x 53 x 32 cm. Provenance : - collection Metz-Noblat, Château de Clevant, France Rectangular trunk of the form and size of a small suitcase with wrought iron hinges and lock-plate. Wood, covered with leather, cut and embossed with every surface of the thick cow hide covered in interlace, zoomorphic features. The construction method is boiled leather, often referred to by its French translation cuir-bouilli: a process used to change flexible, vegetable-tanned leather into rigid, moulded objects. For shaping of the vegetable-tanned leather, heat and moisture were used, as indicated by the term boiled leather. No written medieval sources describing the production of decorated cuir bouilli objects survive, so knowledge of the process relies on the important studies of the Scottish leather historian John William Waterer. A large range of methods, materials and techniques could be used in various combinations. The vegetable-tanned leather, made supple with moisture and heat, was stuffed, shaped and nailed to the rigid wooden coffer support. The stuffing material was probably modeled beeswax or stearin wax. To shape the leather, to create its topography, « Cushions » were made by lacing a thread through an awl hole and attaching the flexible leather and stuffing to the rigid wooden support on the bottom. Then the decoration was done: lines were incised through the upper layer of the leather (epidermis) with different thicknesses of knives or needles. Contours were created with deep v-shaped cuts, decoration with thin incision and final details with a needle point. For the incision and pouncing stage, the leather was probably kept heated and moistened for suppleness. Once dry, the leather would be hard and rigid. the saturated leather is worked over a form, possibly even damp sand, with the pattern shaped using bone or wooden tools. Compare to metal, leather was lighter and it offered protection from cuts and punctures. Cuir bouilli objects were produced by specialist leather workers and needed skillful craftsmanship. The surface is filled with roundels shaped foliages enclosing animals, lions and peacocks. The foliate arabesques creating a vegetal connection tweet the animals create the impression of a lush verdant space . The vegetal pattern here employed in combination with geometrical pattern came from the pre-islamic artistic traditions of the Byzantine and Sasanian empires. An aspect of Islamic geometry Is the basic symmetrical repetition and mirroring of the shapes that create a sense of harmony. The decoration of this truck is inspired by the islamic « arabesque » a form of vegetal ornament composed of spirals, intertwining plants and abstract curvilinear motifs. An arabesque character is given to the birds of the decorations through extreme stylisation. This arabesque maintained the classical tradition of median symmetry, freedom in Detail and heterogeneity of ornament. The presence of the peacocks is a paradisiacal allusion: in popular Islamic literature they were among the original inhabitants of the garden of Paradise expelled with Adam and Eve. Peacock as a decorative motif may have originated in the West, despite their eastern provenance. There was an ancient belief that the flesh and feathers of peacock do not decay. This led to the peacock becoming a christian symbol for Christ’s resurrection. Renowned for their decorative wall hangings, seventeenth-century Spanish leatherworkers also produced utilitarian objects, such as this trunk. A similar trunk is on display at the Metropolitan museum of art ( 09.158.1). Related literature : Davies L. 2006. Cuir bouilli. Conservation of leather and related materials, 94-102, Oxford: elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann Grabar, Oleg. The Mediation of Ornament. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992 Gabriela Germana Roquez, "El mueble en el Peru en el siglo XVIII...
Category

Antique 17th Century Decorative Boxes

Materials

Iron

Boiled Leather Trunk, Spanish, 17th Century
$12,387 Sale Price
40% Off
Free Shipping
Bronze salamander - 17th century
Located in Bruxelles, BE
Bronze salamander Italy, 17th century Patinated bronze 4 x 17 x 10 cm This finely cast bronze salamander exemplifies the 17th-century fascination with naturalistic forms and animal ...
Category

Antique 17th Century Italian Renaissance Animal Sculptures

Materials

Bronze

You May Also Like

17th Century English Walnut Stool
Located in High Point, NC
Wonderful and rare 17th century walnut stool from England. This is a very rare form with a cabriole and Spanish foot, which was a very popular style that came to England from Spain ...
Category

Antique 17th Century English Queen Anne Stools

Materials

Leather, Walnut

17th Century French Louis XIII Stool
Located in Chicago, IL
A gorgeous 17th century French Louis XIII walnut stool with barley twist legs and stretchers, and newly upholstered in a wool and linen bouclé. Perfect for tucking under a console table or nightstand, but also functions as a soft side table...
Category

Antique 17th Century French Louis XIII Stools

Materials

Bouclé, Walnut

LATE 17th CENTURY PAIR OF WALNUT STOOLS
Located in Firenze, FI
Elegant pair of stools in blond bride wood, finely set and twisted. The wood boasts a beautiful patina and their shape is characterized by a refined pattern of carving and turning. T...
Category

Antique Late 17th Century Italian Louis XIV Stools

Materials

Velvet, Walnut

Pair of 17th century Rustic Walnut Stools
Located in Troy, NY
Charming pair of small stools, bobbin turned legs, joined by box stretchers, octagonal tops, beautiful worn and dried out look.
Category

Antique 17th Century French Baroque Stools

Materials

Walnut

17th Century Style Joint Stool
Located in Westwood, NJ
An antiqued wood ‘Joynt’ stool, with a serpentine apron on pegged splay legs joined by a stretcher. The original 17th century. Dimensions: 22" W x 12" D x 18" H.
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Vietnamese Jacobean Benches

Materials

Wood

Oak Upholstered Stool 17th Century
Located in Bakewell, GB
C1680 oak upholstered stool with turned legs and square section stretchers top upholstered with kilim rug 52 cms high 40 long 34 deep price
Category

Antique 17th Century English Stools

Materials

Oak

Recently Viewed

View All