This intricately decorated cabinet exemplifies the highly skilled furniture-making tradition that flourished in 17th-century Antwerp. The architectural structure features a central body with a columned opening, revealing a remarkable spiegelpaleisje (‘mirror palace’, also known in contemporary sources as a prospectiefke or perspective interior) - a hidden chamber with mirrored walls and a checkered floor composed of ebony and ivory tiles that creates the illusion of infinite depth. This theatrical element would have been used to display small precious objects or sculptures, multiplying their appearance through reflections and adding to the cabinet's sense of wonder and spectacle. [1] The arched and painted entrance to the mirror palace is crowned by a decorative tympanum with classical architectural detailing, adding to the classical temple-like appearance of the central section. Surrounding this central body are nine small-scale landscape paintings. The cabinet also includes two hinged side doors as well as an upper compartment - each featuring a landscape painting - creating multiple display and storage spaces. The ebonized wood construction showcases ebony veneer applied to a local wood (probably fruitwood), with architectural design featuring decorative moldings and beaded borders.

In his Dictionnaire universel (published 1690) Antoine Furetière (1619-1688) wrote: "Cabinet. Type of sideboard with several doors and drawers to lock up precious things, or to serve as an ornament in a room or gallery.” [2] These pieces functioned both as private museums (a miniature kunstkammer) and practical storage, demonstrating not only the wealth of their owners but also their refined taste, aesthetics, and erudition. Invented during the great voyages of discovery, cabinets were originally intended to store papers, jewelry, and indispensable items while traveling. They often featured secret drawers (secreeten) and double bottoms for securing valuables. The legs were created later as a more aesthetic alternative to the trestles upon which they were originally placed. Beyond utility, cabinets served as status symbols, proclaiming their owner's wealth as they traveled from province to province. They functioned as decorative objects allowing wealthy patrons to simultaneously display prized possessions and store personal items in numerous drawers.

Despite the economic downturn following the Fall of Antwerp in 1585 and the subsequent blockade of the Scheldt River by the Dutch Republic, Antwerp remained an important center for the arts throughout the 17th century. Artists' studios continued to operate and commissions remained available, and the city remained one of the most important international centers for art production and export. The presence of large numbers of specialized craftsmen including cabinetmakers, sculptors, turners, painters, gilders, mirror makers, locksmiths and many others made possible the production of the typical ‘Antwerp cabinet’. These were highly refined luxury products - each one essentially a Gesamtkunstwerk - whose production was often coordinated by art dealers such as the Forchondt family. These beautifully crafted art cabinets, quintessentially ‘made in Antwerp’, were exported throughout Europe. In addition to ebony veneer, blackened fruitwood (often pearwood stained black) was also used to imitate ebony. Cabinets were enriched with various materials including silverfoil, embroidery, tortoiseshell, ivory, alabaster, marble, enamel, lapis lazuli, and porphyry, along with trompe l'œil paintings, creating theatrical pieces full of surprises as compartments were opened. [3]

Painting the drawers and doors for these highly sought-after cabinets was steady, lucrative business for artists. The present cabinet features in total no less than 13 landscape paintings on panel, depicting pastoral scenes with trees and foliage in warm golden-brown and green tones, figures in village and countryside settings, buildings and architectural elements, water features and distant views, all beneath soft atmospheric skies. These quiet, pastoral landscapes, executed in the tradition of Jan Brueghel the Elder, display characteristic features of Jasper van der Laanen's work.

Jasper van der Lanen was born in Antwerp, ca. 1585. [4] Little is known about his early life. He was registered in the liggeren of the Antwerp guild of St Luke in 1607, as a pupil to the obscure painter Nicolaes Geerts. He became a master of the guild in 1615. [5] In 1624 van der Lanen married Elisabeth Rombouts in the Antwerp Church of St George; the painter Abraham Govaerts - a fellow painter and close friend of van der Lanen - was one of the witnesses at the wedding. The time of death of van der Lanen is not known with certainty but it is believed he died in Antwerp sometime between 1626 and 1644. Jasper van der Lanen was a specialist landscape painter. He is known for his wooded landscapes with figures representing mythological or biblical stories or pastoral scenes. Stylistically, van der Lanen was close to contemporaries such as Jan Brueghel the Younger and Abraham Govaerts; after the latter’s death, van der Lanen completed several works that were left unfinished in Govaerts’ workshop. As was common in Antwerp artistic practice of the time, van der Lanen collaborated with specialist figure painters - such as Frans II Francken and Hans III Jordaens - who added the figures to his landscapes. In at least one instance van der Lanen worked on a collaborative painting representing The Four Elements with Francken and Brueghel. [6]

Besides independent landscape paintings, van der Lanen also produced small-scale paintings intended as cabinet doors and drawers. He must have acquainted himself with the practice early on, as his former master Nicholaes Geerts was known in the guild as a 'schilder van coffers’ ('painter of chests’). [7] Many of the small paintings attributed to van der Lanen on the market today once probably formed part of a painted cabinet. [8] A complete cabinet with depictions of scenes of the New Testament, attributed to van der Lanen, was sold at Christie’s in 2005. [9] Another cabinet with pastoral landscapes similar to the ones in the present work was sold in 2023.

END NOTES

[1] For the specific study of mirror palaces in Antwerp cabinets, see Ria Fabri, "Perspectiefjes in het spel: Optische 'Spielereien' in Antwerpse kunstkasten uit de zeventiende eeuw," De Zeventiende Eeuw 15, no. 1 (1999): 127-143.

[2] Antoine Furetière, Dictionnaire universel, contenant généralement tous les mots françois tant vieux que modernes, et les termes de toutes les sciences et des arts, The Hague, Arnout & Reinier Leers, 1690.

[3] For a comprehensive study on Antwerp cabinets and their typology, historical context and art-historical aspects, see Ria Fabri, "De 17de-eeuwse Antwerpse kunstkast. Typologische en historische aspecten," Verhandelingen van de Koninklijke Academie voor Wetenschappen, Letteren en Schone Kunsten van België, Klasse der Schone Kunsten 53, Brussels, AWLSK, 1991; and Ria Fabri, "De 17de-eeuwse Antwerpse kunstkast. Kunsthistorische aspecten," Verhandelingen van de Koninklijke Academie voor Wetenschappen, Letteren en Schone Kunsten van België, Klasse der Schone Kunsten 55, Brussels, AWLSK, 1993.

[4] For an introduction to van der Lanen’s life and work, see U. Härting and K. Borms, Abraham Govaerts: der Waldmaler (1589-1626), Schoten, 2004, p. 24, 53-54.

[5] P. Rombouts en T. Van Lerius, De Liggeren en andere historische archieven der Antwerpsche Sint Lucasgilde, Antwerp, 1864, p. 445 and 513. 

[6] Oil on panel, 70,5 x 121,5 cm. Sold Christie’s London, 17 December 1999, lot 3.

[7] D. van der Linden, “Coping with crisis. Career strategies of Antwerp painters after 1585”, in: De Zeventiende Eeuw 31 (2015), p. 25 and 45.

[8] Such as the pair of landscapes on panel measuring 14 x 17,5 cm, sold at Dusseldorfer Auktionshaus on 29 November 2025, lot 1556.

[9] Christie’s London, 16 November 2005, lot 81.