Style Neo-Renaissance / Ref.15363

Aimé Millet (1819–1891) — Large Neo-Renaissance cabinet in walnut and gilt bronze

Large two-body cabinet in walnut, profusely mounted with gilt bronze, France, last quarter of the 19th century. The ornamental plaques set into the doors of the upper body bear the signature MILLET, attributable to the sculptor Aimé Millet (1819–1891), who produced numerous decorative compositions for high-end cabinet-making under the Second Empire and the Third Republic. Upper body. The projecting cornice, moulded with a bronze bead-and-reel frieze, is surmounted by a curved broken pediment in pierced walnut, at the centre of which stands a gilt bronze statuette of a nude female figure holding two doves — a likely allegory of Venus-Aphrodite. The corners of the crowning are fitted with turned wood finials in the form of draped-garland vases. The upper body itself is organised around a central bay flanked by fluted walnut columns with composite capitals and draped bases in gilt bronze. At the outer corners, two Renaissance-style atlantes in gilt bronze, clad in the manner of Mannerist warriors, support the cornice with raised arms, the detail of their doublets and buskins rendered with care. Each of the two central doors is set with a high-relief gilt bronze plaque: on the left, Apollo crowned with laurel, holding a lyre and draped in a chlamys against a sketched landscape; on the right, Diana the Huntress, half-draped, holding an arrow, with a greyhound at her feet. Between the columns and the doors, arched recesses on a dark ground frame the composition. The entablature frieze is decorated with a pierced bronze mount bearing helmeted mascarons, acanthus scrolls, and vine clusters. Lower body. The lower body rests on four fluted walnut columns with Ionic capitals and gilt bronze bases, joined by a low shelf bordered with a scrolled bronze frieze. The central apron features a drawer with a foliage-mascaron keyhole escutcheon, flanked by two lateral drawers, above a broad pierced bronze mount with intertwined scrolls, a torch, and a cornucopia in a scalloped cartouche. The whole rests on small bronze toupie feet. The quality and density of the bronze ornamental programme, combined with Millet's signature, point to a first-rank production intended for a wealthy clientele of the 1870s–1890s.