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Hendrick Van Balen Cabinet with paintings attributed...

Price Tax incl.:
68000 EUR

Hendrick Van Balen Cabinet with paintings attributed to Hendrick Van Balen, Antwerp, circa 1630 17th century Dimensions with base: height: 165 cm, width: 97 cm, depth: 45 cm. With doors and top compartment open, height: 200 cm, width 175 cm. Very good condition, with original hinges and locks. The painted panels have retained all the freshness of their original colors. This precious cabinet is one of the rare works, emblematic of the city of Antwerp, created thanks to the collaboration between a painter and a master cabinetmaker, and destined to adorn Kunstkammer (private museum) or art lovers' cabinets. Our cabinet is adorned with 13 painted panels with mythological and allegorical subjects, and perfectly reflects Antwerp's pictorial trends of the early 17th century. Definitely in the spirit of the times, when one of the roles of the kunstkammer (the room for which it is intended) is to be able to contemplate the world in all its aspects. It opens with two leaves revealing 10 drawers, 9 of which have painted panels on the front, a central door and an upper compartment whose interior is also adorned with a painted panel. The door on the left features a subject from Roman mythology: Pomona and Vertumne in a garden. The fruits and vegetables at Pomona's feet evoke the allegory of summer and nature's abundance. On the right-hand door, Venus and Amor in a castle park, surrounded by putti, depict the allegory of spring, of which bouquets and vases of flowers are key attributes. The small central door illustrates the Allegory of Vanity, personified by a young woman holding an oil lamp from which smoke escapes (the passage of time), while the putto blowing soap bubbles (signifying the fragility of life) sits on a skull, symbolizing death. The panel in the upper compartment shows Apollo and the nine Muses on Mount Parnassus. This representation of the world through a cabinet continues with the choice of subjects for the drawer panels, inspired by Ovid's Metamorphoses engraved by Antonio Tempesta. These engravings, published in 1606, considerably expanded the mythological pictorial repertoire and quickly became a source of inspiration for Antwerp artists. Present subjects: Left side from top to bottom: - The death of Adonis - The death of Hyacinth - Meleager killing the Calydon boar - Ceneus and Poseidon Right side from top to bottom : - The Race of Hippomenes and Atalanta - Meleager presents Atalanta with Calydon's boar's head - Procris offering Artemis' javelin to Cephalus - Pan pursuing Syrynx - Central drawer: Glaucus seduced by Scylla The stories contained in "The Metamorphoses" were perfectly suited to curiosity cabinets, whose function was to reflect and explain the world and its origins. An almost identical cabinet also attributed to Hendrick Van Balen, with similar painted panels, was sold at Christie's London, December 8, 2011, lot no. 107. See also another cabinet attributed to Hendrick Van Balen, sold at Christie's London 27/10/2015, lot 226, some of whose panels are very similar to ours (the allegory of Vanity, Glaucus seduced by Scylla, Pomona and Vertumne). The Philadelphia Museum of Art holds a series of small panels by Hendrick Van Balen from a cabinet, including two with the same subject and similar to our panels. In addition to the fabulous painted decoration, our cabinet is executed with refinement and the use of expensive materials. It features a sober, yet meticulous exterior in ebony veneer, embellished with wavy molding frames. Inside, tortoiseshell veneer is used to enhance the preciousness of the ensemble, as evidenced in particular by two half-columns applied to the central door and the drawer above with a gallery of gilded balusters. Once open, the small door reveals a theater of alternating mirrors and tortoiseshell veneered half-columns adorned with gilded bronze rings, and a floor composed of ebony and ivory rectangles. Following the classical design, it features a large drawer in the waistband and ball feet. Our cabinet stands on an elegant 19th-century ebony-veneered base composed of two handsome canted columns and two half-columns, adorned with ormolu capitals, rings and bases. In the 17th century, Antwerp was Europe's leading center for the manufacture of painted-panel cabinets. Illustrations of contemporary interiors show that these were

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