Table Cabinet (Contador)
Decorative Arts and Design
Colonial Spanish American rooms often contained two or three stacked cabinets and writing desks like the ones seen here. Bufetes, or side tables, sometimes draped with velvet covers with gold fringes and tassels, would serve as bases for these towers of luxury. A religious image or a precious object such as an ivory sculpture would crown the furniture.
The vertical arrangement of elite objects in Spanish and Spanish American reception rooms is documented in both Baroque prints and colonial American inventories. The 1710 Lima inventory of the estate of the wealthy Spanish viceroy of Peru, the marquis de Castelldosrius, lists “two desks covered with tortoise shell, ivory, and mother-of-pearl with two other similar, but smaller, desks and their two side tables with two borders of the same.”
El mobiliario en las habitaciones coloniales hispanoamericanas frecuentemente incluía dos o tres gabinetes o escritorios apilados uno sobre otro, como se aprecia aquí. Bufetes o mesas laterales, a veces con cubiertas de terciopelo adornadas con flecos y borlas de oro, servían como base para estas torres de lujo. Una imagen religiosa u otro objeto precioso como una escultura de marfil coronaba la composición.
El arreglo vertical de objetos de lujo en las salas de recepción en España y en Hispanoamérica se documenta tanto en algunos grabados barrocos como en numerosos inventarios coloniales americanos. El inventario de 1710 del acaudalado virrey español del Perú, el marqués de Castelldosrius, en Lima, cataloga “dos escritorios cubiertos de carey, marfil y madreperla con otros escritorios similares más pequeños y sus dos mesas laterales con dos bordes iguales.”
The vertical arrangement of elite objects in Spanish and Spanish American reception rooms is documented in both Baroque prints and colonial American inventories. The 1710 Lima inventory of the estate of the wealthy Spanish viceroy of Peru, the marquis de Castelldosrius, lists “two desks covered with tortoise shell, ivory, and mother-of-pearl with two other similar, but smaller, desks and their two side tables with two borders of the same.”
El mobiliario en las habitaciones coloniales hispanoamericanas frecuentemente incluía dos o tres gabinetes o escritorios apilados uno sobre otro, como se aprecia aquí. Bufetes o mesas laterales, a veces con cubiertas de terciopelo adornadas con flecos y borlas de oro, servían como base para estas torres de lujo. Una imagen religiosa u otro objeto precioso como una escultura de marfil coronaba la composición.
El arreglo vertical de objetos de lujo en las salas de recepción en España y en Hispanoamérica se documenta tanto en algunos grabados barrocos como en numerosos inventarios coloniales americanos. El inventario de 1710 del acaudalado virrey español del Perú, el marqués de Castelldosrius, en Lima, cataloga “dos escritorios cubiertos de carey, marfil y madreperla con otros escritorios similares más pequeños y sus dos mesas laterales con dos bordes iguales.”
MEDIUM
Wood, bone, ivory, tortoiseshell, and metal (with modern feet)
DATES
mid 17th century
DIMENSIONS
13 3/4 x 27 x 11 1/2 in. (34.9 x 68.6 x 29.2 cm) (show scale)
COLLECTIONS
Decorative Arts and Design
ACCESSION NUMBER
48.206.92
CREDIT LINE
Frank L. Babbott Fund, Frank Sherman Benson Fund, Carll H. de Silver Fund, A. Augustus Healy Fund, Caroline A.L. Pratt Fund, Charles Stewart Smith Memorial Fund, and Ella C. Woodward Memorial Fund
MUSEUM LOCATION
This item is not on view
CAPTION
Table Cabinet (Contador), mid 17th century. Wood, bone, ivory, tortoiseshell, and metal (with modern feet), 13 3/4 x 27 x 11 1/2 in. (34.9 x 68.6 x 29.2 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Frank L. Babbott Fund, Frank Sherman Benson Fund, Carll H. de Silver Fund, A. Augustus Healy Fund, Caroline A.L. Pratt Fund, Charles Stewart Smith Memorial Fund, and Ella C. Woodward Memorial Fund, 48.206.92. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: , 53.11.8_48.206.92_EL95.08_PS6.jpg)
IMAGE
group, 53.11.8_48.206.92_EL95.08_PS6.jpg.
"CUR" at the beginning of an image file name means that the image was created by a curatorial staff member. These study images may be digital point-and-shoot photographs, when we don\'t yet have high-quality studio photography, or they may be scans of older negatives, slides, or photographic prints, providing historical documentation of the object.
RIGHTS STATEMENT
Creative Commons-BY
You may download and use Brooklyn Museum images of this three-dimensional work in accordance with a Creative Commons license. Fair use, as understood under the United States Copyright Act, may also apply.
Please include caption information from this page and credit the Brooklyn Museum. If you need a high resolution file, please fill out our online application form (charges apply).
For further information about copyright, we recommend resources at the United States Library of Congress, Cornell University, Copyright and Cultural Institutions: Guidelines for U.S. Libraries, Archives, and Museums, and Copyright Watch.
For more information about the Museum's rights project, including how rights types are assigned, please see our blog posts on copyright.
If you have any information regarding this work and rights to it, please contact copyright@brooklynmuseum.org.
RECORD COMPLETENESS
Not every record you will find here is complete. More information is available for some works than for others, and some entries have been updated more recently. Records are frequently reviewed and revised, and we welcome any additional information you might have.
