The Renaissance Cabinet, between secret and ostentation

It can be found on classic furniture stands. Often mounted on high legs and closed by two leaves, it is elegant, looks great and rutile of noble materials. Its richness intrigues and its use questions. The cabinet is an enigmatic piece of furniture which continues today to awaken the most fierce curiosities. A short tour of this mysterious maze of drawers.

A TRAVEL FURNITURE Today, the cabinet has gone through a long period of pomp. Manufactured from the 16th to the 19th century, mainly in Italy, Spain and the Germanic countries, the cabinet was originally a piece of furniture designed to facilitate the movements of its owners. There were all the necessaries of travel, jewels, papers, and other small objects which the nobleman took with him. The upper part of the cabinet, storage space, usually has two side handles. Like a trunk, it was thus moved from the carriage to the castle. The lower part, the frame, created later, is only the integration and aesthetic treatment of the trestles used to put the cabinet. In the nineteenth century, the cabinet lost its primary function of traveling furniture, it is often conceived in one piece with its base that becomes an integral part of the piece of furniture. An office of utility, the cabinet had none the less a symbolic function. Admire the richness of the materials which compose it, the delicacy of the work of the wood, the care given to the finishes. This traveling companion of the rich and the powerful was a real advertising tool. It was inscribed and visible to all the magnificence of its wealthy owner. Ivory, ebony, turtle scales, rosewood, porphyry, lapis-lazuli, enamels ... everything is only sparkle and ostentation. And we appeal to the greatest cabinetmakers of his time to immortalize his power. Thus from the Charles Hunsinger House, a copy of which was preserved in the Musée d'Orsay in 1879, a rare model of 1880 with the delicate designs of marquetry that one might admire in Laurent Vanlian at Serpette.

A CULTURE OF THE SECRET There is all the contradiction of the Cabinet. Utilitarian and ostentatious, he is also the guardian of many secrets. It shows to better conceal. Its apparent wealth diverts attention from what it contains. Very often, its wings contain a labyrinthine combination of drawers, where confidential mails and precious objects were slipped. The XVIIth Cabinet presented by the James House thus counts no less than 24! In the center, one discovers a small theater, a true gallery of mirrors where every reflection ricochets. Mirrors to the larks, the cabinet laughs at us and tells us that we will never be able to exhaust its secrets.