Mexican Tortoiseshell and Pen-Engraved Cabinet

Fantastic Spanish Colonial school screen. Probably from Peru. This screen, with a kind of European landscape, give us an idea of the influence ...

AN EXCEPTIONAL SPANISH COLONIAL VARGUEÑO OR BARGUEÑO, tortoiseshell, ebony, engraved ivory and Colonial hardwood, Spain, 16th / 17th century (cabinet) An exceptional and unusually r...

Uncovered sample desk made of wood, with the central part advanced and highlighted with a double chapel of architectural composition. Each of the sides has five drawers with the front decorated with tortoiseshell and an elaborate golden bronze lock shield (two rampant lions faced, located on a garland and with a shield crowned between them, in which the hollow of the key). The center of the front has two levels: the lower one has four columns with éntasis, two on each side and joined by an entablature and a top finish in dark wood, and a series of gold metal elements in the center between which it stands out, sheltered under a semicircular arch, the figure of Hercules fighting against Caco; the upper one has some moldings forming some recesses, with an important heraldic shield in the center, all enhanced with volutes towards the sides, and different elements in gilded metal, of classicist inspiration. The general scheme of the furniture responds to a very widespread and valued model in 17th century Europe, of which the best examples have been, as a rule, those of Italian manufacture, and which is continued in the eighteenth century without breaking the compositional clarity of the one that shows in this frontal but yes changing slight decorative details and elements in the area of the central chapel, above all. The practice of using tortoiseshell plates...