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Anthony Outred (Antiques) Ltd
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Inlaid Walnut Bureau
( Italy
1760
)
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Description / Expertise
A RARE AND EXCEPTIONAL INLAID WALNUT BUREAU
Lombardy
Circa 1760.
The bureau of impressive proportions, having shaped sides and with three long drawers beneath the bureau fall, the bureau interior fitted with an arrangement of four short drawers around a central pigeon hole and with a sliding cover to a hidden compartment in the well, the sides of the interior with secret panels concealing an opening mechanism releasing the outer shaped side panels to reveal hidden cupboards, the whole profusely inlaid in bone and white metal line, the central inlay to the bureau fall front of a classical naked female figure depicting Andromeda chained to a rock, surrounded by scrolling foliate inlays, and with birds, masks and grotesque heads, on swept bracket feet.
Legend recounts that as Perseus flew over the Levantine coast he was so staggered at the sight of Andromeda chained to a rock that he at first assumed her to be made of marble, such was her beauty. Perseus descended and realised the figure was crying, he learnt that she was the daughter of Cepheus, King of Joppa and Cassiopeia. The sea god Poseidon, angered by Andromeda’s mother claiming that her daughter was more beautiful even than the Nereids (his sea nymph attendants), had flooded the kingdom and sent a sea monster by way of punishment. King Cepheus had chained Andromeda to the cliff in an attempt to appease Poseidon. Perseus fell in love with Andromeda and promised to save her from the sea monster in return for her hand in marriage and a kingdom from Cepheus. He fought the sea monster, killing it, and washed himself in a spring which was said to have run red from that moment on.
Measurements: 55.5 ” (141 cm) wide 22 “ (56 cm) deep 44.5 “ (113 cm) high
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