A Flemish cabinet with painted doors - 17th century

In the seventeenth century, Antwerp was the leading European centre for painted cabinets. That production was encouraged by a ban on the import of Nuremberg cabinets in 1603. Depictions of interiors from the period show that they were display pieces, with the doors often open to show the small oil paintings. They were used to house collections of jewellery, silverware, minerals, shells and other objects, a reference to the princely tradition of the Kunstkammer.
This cabinet has two painted doors, with landscapes with figures on the inside: on the left beneath trees, on the right with a round ruined tower. Behind the doors are small drawers arranged around a central door, with small landscapes on the drawer fronts as well. In the hinged lid there are three panels and a mirror.
Rubens himself did not decorate furniture, but his lively style influenced the cabinet painters of Antwerp. The paintings on cabinets were often copies of famous works or stories from classical mythology or the Bible, but landscape painters also made small landscapes for cabinet doors and drawers. As early as 1617, Jan Brueghel the Elder and Frans Francken depicted ebony cabinets with painted panels in their paintings, and Francken himself also painted panels for cabinets.