John Evelyn's cabinet is a highly decorated storage box in the collection of the

Victoria & Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...

in London. The cabinet was probably made in Florence for the diarist

John Evelyn John Evelyn (31 October 162027 February 1706) was an English writer, landowner, gardener, courtier and minor government official, who is now best known as a diarist. He was a founding Fellow of the Royal Society. John Evelyn's diary, or memo ...

(1620-1706),The John Evelyn Cabinet
from Victoria & Albert Museum. and is an early example of a piece of furniture commissioned by a British visitor making the '

Grand Tour The Grand Tour was the principally 17th- to early 19th-century custom of a traditional trip through Europe, with Italy as a key destination, undertaken by upper-class young European men of sufficient means and rank (typically accompanied by a tuto ...

' of Europe. Objects often acquire their fame because of who owned them, but what makes this cabinet unusual is that its physical appearance was the result of elements already owned by the man who commissioned it. The cabinet was expressly made to incorporate 19

pietre dure ''Pietra dura'' () or ''pietre dure'' () ( see below), called parchin kari or parchinkari ( fa, ) in the Indian Subcontinent, is a term for the inlay technique of using cut and fitted, highly polished colored stones to create images. It is c ...

(hardstone) panels, which Evelyn purchased in Florence from their maker, Domenico Benotti (active 1630-50), in 1644. The base of the cabinet was later heightened (probably in Paris) to accommodate the addition of a series of bronze plaques, probably made in Florence by

Francesco Fanelli Francesco Fanelli (c. 1590–1653) was an Italian sculptor, born in Florence, who spent most of his career in England. He likely had contacts if not training in the studio of Giambologna, then in the hands of Pietro Francavilla and Pietro Tacca ...

(active 1610-42). ''

Evelyn's Diary The ''Diary'' of John Evelyn (31 October 1620 – 27 February 1706), a gentlemanly Royalist and ''virtuoso'' of the seventeenth century, was first published in 1818 (2nd edition, 1819) under the title ''Memoirs Illustrative of the Life and Writing ...

'' was first published in the early 1800s, more than a century after his death. The national recognition he achieved in turn gave the cabinet new significance, and it was further embellished with gilt brass mounts, decorated with amorini and swags, the strawberry leaf cresting, and provided with its stand. On Evelyn's return from the Grand Tour, the cabinet was probably housed in Dover Street, London. Soon after Evelyn's death in 1706 it was moved to his country residence,

Wotton House Wotton House, Wotton Underwood, Buckinghamshire, England, is a stately home built between 1704 and 1714, to a design very similar to that of the contemporary version of Buckingham House. The house is an example of English Baroque and a Grade I l ...

in Wotton, Surrey. In 1813, John Evelyn's diaries were discovered in an 'ebony cabinet' at Wotton House, quite possibly this one.

References

*{{cite book, editor=Jackson, Anna, title= V&A: A Hundred Highlights, publisher=V&A Publications, year=2001 Collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum Cabinets (furniture) Individual pieces of furniture