COOHEW_171222_48
Existing comment:
Cabinet On Stand (probably England), 1675–1700

This is a cabinet on stand. It is dated 1675–1700 and we acquired it in 1926. Its medium is marquetry inlaid, veneered and joined oak, deal, walnut, and other wood, bone, brass. It is a part of the Product Design and Decorative Arts department.

The refined construction of this cabinet indicates it was probably made for a sophisticated English client, with a skilled Dutch craftsman providing the marquetry. Specialty craftsmen migrated from France and the Netherlands to London during the last third of the 17th century for political reasons or due to the lure of patronage opportunities.

"Tulipmania" was a craze for tulip bulbs cultivated and exported by the Dutch (originally imported from the Ottoman Empire). The cabinet's floral marquetry includes striated tulips, the most exotic available, in floral arrangements. Floral arrangements with tulips were the subject of paintings, and engravings, especially in the Low Countries. Prints by the French designer Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer (see wall to right, 1938- 58-865), who published works in Amsterdam and was in London in the 1690s, are likely sources for this marquetry.

John Innes Kane and his wife, Annie Schermerhorn Kane, played a major role in forming the collections of the early Cooper Union Museum. Both were members of prominent New York families. Mr. Kane, great-grandson of John Jacob Astor, also served on the museum's Advisory Council. The Kanes collected in Europe to furnish their Italian Renaissance residence on Fifth Avenue, designed by Stanford White and completed in 1904. The objects donated by the Kanes are generally English and Continental European, from the Renaissance through the 18th century.
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