Flemish cabinet, possibly Antwerp, 17th century and later.

It has small defects. Ebony veneered top with curly mouldings with two partially gilded doors at the front and a gilded metal putto musician on each side. Central chapel inside with silver applications in relief depicting cherubs, horns of plenty, garlands and another putto musician in the centre. Inside, architectural chapel with a checkerboard floor of bone and ebony and walls with mirrors between columns. Folding top lid and waist drawer. It rests on a French-influenced base of ebonised, gilded and partially polychromed wood with putti tenants on the legs and one sitting on the crossbar. The interior decoration of the doors and the fronts of the drawers are done in oil on wood depicting various mythological passages. The main scenes are: on the top lid “Helen and Paris” (22 x 66 cm); on the left door “Diana and Actaeon” (40 x 34 cm); and on the right “The Judgement of Paris” (40 x 34 cm). The eight drawers (8 x 23 cm each) contain other episodes such as “The Metamorphosis of Ascalaphus”; “The Rape of Helen” or “The Rape of Europa”. The quality of the pictorial representation is very high, so it must have been an important commission and all the scenes were made by the same Flemish artist from the mid-17th century, probably in Antwerp, a follower of Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640). In terms of its pictorial decoration, this work can be related to a cabinet made in Antwerp around 1650, kept in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam (BK-NM-11906-1) with a possible attribution to the painter Victor Wolfvoet the Younger (1612 - 1652) and his workshop. Origin: -Bernard Blondeel, Antwerp -Private collection, Madrid Measurements: 152 x 97 x 44 cm