Cabinet d'Apparat Flandres 17°

Exceptional large Antwerp cabinet, architecturally shaped in ebony and blackened wood, tortoise shell, bone and ivory from the 17th century.
The upper part opens in front by two central doors framed by twelve drawers.
The doors and all the drawers are decorated with tortoiseshell cabochons surrounded by gilt brass and underlined by frames of ivory fillets and guilloché moldings.
The two doors are flanked by three tortoiseshell columns adorned with three Corinthian capitals in gilded and chased bronze.
These doors open to reveal a magnificent perspective theater framed by two vertical rows of five small drawers.
The floor in bone, ivory and ebony, the sides embellished with tortoiseshell columns and gilded bronzes and mirror backgrounds.
In the center, another door opening onto six small drawers veneered with tortoiseshell, ivory and ebony fillets.
Above these two central doors, a large drawer embellished with a traditional colonnade with balusters, gilded bronzes, tortoiseshell and ebony.
On the sides an elegant geometric decoration of ivory nets.
This very beautiful and exceptional cabinet rests on a base (from a later period), with eight column legs with capitals joined by a wide spacer.
Note the great ornamental richness of this ceremonial cabinet both in the choice of materials used (tortoiseshell, bone, ivory, ebony, etc.) and in its complex, abundant and harmonious architecture.
The base consists of three false drawers and takes up the rich ornamentation of the facade.
Flanders (Antwerp) 17th century period.
Former Gismondi collection