Studiolo: the small retreats in the palaces of Urbino and Gubbio were inlaid with intarsia that figured just such fitted cabinets with feigned lattice doors and shelves filled with scientific instruments, books and small sculptures in trompe-l'oeil perspective.
Sixteenth-century cabinet-makers serving the luxury trades of Florence and Antwerp were beginning to produce moveable cabinets with similar architectural interior fittings, which could be set upon a carpet-covered table or on a purpose-built stand.
It appears to represent a reduction of a well-known sculpture by Alessandro Algardi.
Still life was considered a lesser genre than even portraits or landscapes.
Alexander, Edward P. (1995). Museum Masters: Their Museums and Their Influence. Walnut Creek, London, New Delhi: AltaMira Press., 20–42; Clark, Jack A. " Sir Hans Sloane and Abbé Jean Paul Bignon: Notes on Collection Building in the Eighteenth Century," in The Library Quarterly, Vol. 50, No. 4 (October 1980), 475–482; de Beer, G. R. "Sir Hans Sloane, F.R.S 1660–1753," in Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, Vol. 10, No. 2 (April 1953), 81–84; and Kriz, Kay Dian.
