Valdovų rūmų muziejaus XVI-XVII a. kabinetai
ENThe article is about an item of furniture that was very popular in the 16th-18th centuries known as cabinets. The forerunner to the cabinet was the vargueno which originated in the 16th century in Spain whose construction and functionality was very similar to the cabinet. Under the rule of the Habsburgs, cabinets started being manufactured in the Holy Roman Empire, the main production centres being Augsburg, Nürnberg and Innsbruk. Other major production centres of this item of furniture were established in Italy, France and the Netherlands. Cabinets were particularly elaborately decorated, often incorporating a rich iconographic system. Expensive, often imported materials were used in the production of such cabinets, including materials such as black wood, ivory, tortoise shell, silver, amber, semi-precious gemstones, etc. The elaborately decorated exterior of the cabinet had to reflect the owner’s status in society and their acquired wealth. The main purpose of cabinets was to store expensive and valuable objects (documents, goldsmithery, gemstones, corals, and such). Some cabinets had doors that could fold out and function as a writing desk. The brief summary of the history and variety of cabinets is followed by a presentation of the cabinets featured in the National Museum - Palace of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania. At present the museum has five such items of furniture that date to the 16th-17th century and illustrate the particularities of the different production centres.
