inet became one of the most sumptuous of household adornments. It was
natural that the countries which were earliest and most deeply touched by
the Renaissance should excel in the designing of these noble and costly
pieces of furniture. The cabinets of Italy, France and the Netherlands were
especially rich and monumental. Those of Italy and Flanders are often of
great magnificence and of real artistic skill, though like all other
furniture their style was often grievously debased, and their details
incongruous and bizarre. Flanders and Burgundy were, indeed, their lands of
adoption, and Antwerp added to its renown as a metropolis of art by
developing consummate skill in their manufacture and adornment. The cost
and importance of the finer types have ensured the preservation of
innumerable examples of all but the very earliest periods; and the student
never ceases to be impressed by the extraordinary variety of the work of
the 16th and 17th centuries, and very often of the 18th also. The basis of
the cabinet has always been wood, carved, polished or inlaid; but lavish
use has been made of ivory, tortoise-shell, and those cut and polished
precious stones which the Italians call _pietra dura_. In the great Flemish
period of the 17th century the doors and drawers of cabinets were often
painted with classical or mythological scenes. Many French and Florentine
cabinets were also painted. In many classes the drawers and pigeon-holes
are enclosed by folding doors, carved or inlaid, and often painted on the
inner sides. Perhaps the most favourite type during a great part of the
16th and 17th centuries--a type which grew so common that it became
cosmopolitan--was characterized by a conceit which acquired astonishing
popularity. When the folding doors are opened there is disclosed in the
centre of the cabinet a tiny but palatial interior. Floored with alternate
squares of ebony and ivory to imitate a black and white marble pavement,
adorned with Corinthian columns or pilasters, and surrounded by mirrors,
the effect, if occasionally affected and artificial, is quite as often
exquisite. Although cabinets have been produced in England in considerable
variety, and sometimes of very elegant and graceful form, the foreign
makers on the whole produced the most elaborate and monumental examples. As
we have said, Italy and the Netherlands acquired especial distinction in
this kind of work. In France, which has always enjoyed a peculiar genius