Splendid ebony cabinets such as the present example, elaborately conceived to display costly Florentine pietra dura panels from the Galleria dei Lavori or Opificio delle pietre dure (Grand Ducal Workshop), were produced in Florence and favoured from the 17^th century onwards by a growing population of wealthy patrons.

The naturalistic subjects of flowers and birds that form the decoration are typical of the Florentine mosaics created in the Grand Ducal Workshop, founded in 1588 by Grand Duke Ferdinand I de Medici. The subjects were influenced by the mosaicist Jacopo Ligozzi (Verona 1547-Florence 1626), who initiated the trend from the first decades of 17^th century and supplied patterns to the craft.mes n at the workshops.

Since then, for over a century, the Belgian black marble panel that constituted the ideal background in order to highlight the bright colours of the bird plumage and compositions of flowers and fruit, became the official signature of mosaics manufactured in Florence, appreciated everywhere and often imitated, but rarely of the same material, quality and fine execution.

Skills such as those are featured on this very fine and sophisticated cabinet, the panels of which show a rich assortment of mainly hardstones that have been chosen with sensitive detail to colour, combine to give fluidity to the picture. In order to increase productivity, the same templates were used to create the mosaic panels, as seen here with panels featuring birds and flowers that mirror each other (see for example the panel at the top right of the top drawer on the niche’s left handside and the panel on the lower left of the bottom drawer on the right handside). On the other hand, the fine methods and varied use of vibrant colour of the stones were far from the risk of repetition, resulting in originality for each creation.

The offered cabinet is typically based on the design of Florentine table cabinets produced in the 17^th century, in particular the subjects and distribution of mosaics, placed symMetricas lly on the sides of the central niche, the most important feature of which is the door often displaying a larger panel (see two examples illustrated in González-Palacios, Il Tempio del Gusto, Milan, 1984, p.39, figs.26-27). Similar cabinets are recorded in private collects ions, one especially with a similar arrangement of drawers offered at Christie's, London, 3 November 2011, lot 220 and one sold at Replica Shoes 's, London, 31 May 1996, lot 76 (£35,000).