Baroque Wardrobe in Painted Pine, Central Europe, 1794

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This antique baroque painted wardrobe in pine is a Central European two-door wardrobe with a shaped pediment, faux marble and … Read more This antique baroque painted wardrobe in pine is a Central European two-door wardrobe with a shaped pediment, faux marble and the date 1794 painted on the crest. It originates from Central Europe Austro-Hungary Empire, from the end of the eighteenth century, where peasant furniture absorbed the late baroque vocabulary.The two-door wardrobe was the largest piece in the house and was commissioned on the occasion of a wedding or an inheritance. The date painted on the crest does not date the timber but that event, and it served as a public signature of the trousseau.The case is solid pine with a back of vertical boards and stands on turned bun feet. Two framed doors with panelled fields close onto an unpainted interior with shelves and a rail. Beneath them runs a drawer with a moulded front and a turned knob.The ground is a greyish olive green. The mouldings are gilded in ochre and outlined in red; the stiles, beads and crest carry a blue veined faux marble, executed with sponge and brush. Each panel encloses a spray of roses, carnations and blue-green leaves. On the shaped pediment, finished in volutes and fluted capitals, the date 1794 is painted in red with rocaille flourishes.The hardware is cast bronze in rococo taste: palmette escutcheons with hasps and floral rosette pulls, all original.The polychromy retains almost its whole surface, with the gilding worn along the arrises and isolated losses in the mouldings. The green has darkened and the blue of the faux marble keeps its intensity. There is no repaint.At 187 cm high and 160 across the front it is a room piece: a wide bedroom, a high-ceilinged entrance hall or a large dining room. It is also a dated document, and that condition gives it a place of its own in an interior of character. See less