Large Italian chest of drawers, second half of the 18th century

Piedmont - Turin region

With four rows of drawers, curved, green lacquered carved and molded wood, the drawers, the uprights finished with scrolls, and the sides are decorated with fillets and rich motifs of rocaille clasps and foliage in gilded wood.
Marble top with alpha steps surrounded by wooden molding.

The taste for painted furniture spread throughout Italy, mainly in the 18th century. :

After the signing of the Treaty of Aachen on October 18, 1748, ending the War of the Austrian Succession, the country entered a period of tranquility and prosperity. Italy was then influenced by Dutch, English, and French artistic productions, which it transposed with creativity.
Throughout the century, Piedmont and Veneto, in particular, popularized painted furniture.

In the 18th century, André-Jacob Roubo, a French carpenter and cabinetmaker, defined this piece of furniture, which was a cross between a chest of drawers and a sideboard:
“When chests of drawers have more than three rows of drawers in height, they are called wardrobes and are sometimes three feet high.”

This type of refined furniture has become very rare today, as Nicole de Reynies, heritage curator at the General Inventory of Monuments and Artistic Treasures of France, points out in her book Mobilier domestique, vocabulaire typologique (Domestic Furniture, Typological Vocabulary).