Cabinet
Author: Unknown
Origin: Unknown
Dating: 17th century
Material: Wood & Metal
Dimensions (cm): 196,3 x 141,5 x 59
Inv. no.: PD0296
«[A] grand two-body cabinet, whose upper body is smaller. Both bodies may be opened through the means of two doors and a board – in the upper part of the body below – may be lowered, so it may serve as a desk. The decoration of the doors – in carved wood – focuses on mythology.
The theme on the two upper doors was inspired by the mythological scene known as the “Apple of Discord”. Summarily, Paris – son of Priam, king of Troy – was entrusted with deciding on the greatest beauty among the goddesses – Hera (Juno), Athena (Minerva) and Aphrodite (Venus). […] Zeus (Jupiter) sent the three goddesses to him, led by Hermes (Mercury). This confusion was produced by Eris – the goddess of discord – who, at the wedding of Thetis and Peleus, dropped an apple […] that should be given to the most beautiful of the three goddesses.
The scene engraved on the left door shows Paris – beside Hermes – with the apple in his hand and offering it to Aphrodite – depicted on the right door alongside her son Eros (Cupid) with the bow slung over his shoulder and the arrows on the ground (GRIMAL, 1992: 366 e 356).»
Eduardo Magalhães
“Music in the Palace’s Collections”
The Cabinet’s lower body depicts another mythological scene, on Dionysus (Bacchus) who, in a chariot pulled by a Goat and driven by a Putto (perhaps the god himself) alongside another putto playing a trumpet (Roman cornu).
The musician is standing inside the chariot shaped […] as a sled, hitched to a goat – mounted by another putto, balancing himself by clinging to one of the horns. The landscape consists of two trees or shrubs and, on the first of which, a bird is perched on one of the branches – it resembles a heron, a bird associated with the symbolism of Bacchus.
On the right door’s panel, one may see the same goat, with the dismounted musician putto holding the goat by a horn and tail while the other putto holds its head. A third figure stands, clinging to a tree trunk, holding a sort of rod in the right hand.
In this scene, the putto mounting the goat may be seen as Bacchus – the god sometimes transformed into this animal. In this sense, the trumpet signals and solemnizes the presence of the young god. The panel to the right shows the young Bacchus clinging to the trunk of what could be presumed to be a grape vine, holding the thyrsus [one of Bacchus’s insignia] in his right hand, among two other putti holding the goat.
This curved trumpet emulates the ancient Roman cornu – which only lacks the bar to connect the diameter of the circle to facilitate the handling. These figures, known in art as putti, recurrently appear as ornaments, sometimes without any specific context.
The goat – in addition to being an animal into which Bacchus sometimes transformed – was one of the animals that were sacrificed to him, along with hares and magpies. This scene of the young Bacchus – on the two doors – may be interpreted as an evocation of this attribute, similar to, for example, the 17th-century painting by Nicolás Poussin – “Bacchanale des Putti” – where Bacchus is shown mounting a Goat, with the thyrsus in his right hand and surrounded by Putti.»
Eduardo Magalhães
