This art cabinet is an extremely rare example of an Antwerp art cabinet with embroidered scenes. Usually, scenes were painted. The iconography is also exceptional with scenes from the Metamorphoses of the Latin poet Ovidius and not the traditional embroidered flowers and animal motifs. The cabinet has an important switching function because it shows that the compositions of the engraver and illustrator Crispijn van de Passe (15641637) were also followed in the embroidery art. To a very great extent in the 17th century Antwerp furniture contractors were famous producers and exporters of art cabinets with an old word: 'canteens'. In this, securities and small valuables were kept: jewels, coins, shells, textiles and so on. The cabinets often had secret drawers and double bottoms.
Flemish art and heritage collections, in great detail