364 MORE POT-POURRI 



I found a treasure in one of the smaller rooms at the 

 Pitti which Mr. Hare, at any rate, does not mention. 

 It was the most remarkable piece of furniture, from some 

 points of view, I think I ever saw in my life, though 

 perhaps many would call it unartistic. Historically, it 

 is interesting from the religious attitude it represents. 

 It was a large cabinet on a raised stand. It belonged to 

 Cardinal Leopoldo dei Medici, and was placed in his 

 dressing-room. One side of it, when the doors were 

 opened, acted as an altar, with a delicately-carved cru- 

 cifix in a recess, before which the Cardinal could say 

 mass. On the other side the doors opened on to an 

 elaborate toilet table of a most luxurious kind, with 

 looking-glasses and every other appliance. The whole 

 piece of furniture contained a number of small drawers, 

 many of them secret. The black wood of which it was 

 made was highly polished and a beautiful specimen of 

 cabinet work. The whole was richly inlaid, outside and 

 in, with various marbles, stones, and alabasters of dif- 

 ferent colours and sizes. The veinings and colourings 

 of these were used and adapted as the landscape back- 

 grounds of wonderfully delicate little oil paintings, rep- 

 resenting almost the whole of the Bible stories, both Old 

 and New Testament. It requires hours to see this cabi- 

 net properly, and among all the treasures in this wonder 

 palace it is, perhaps, the object that gives one the 

 greatest idea of the wealth and luxury of that God-and- 

 mammon period that can possibly be seen. It is sup- 

 posed to have been made in Germany and painted by 

 Breughel. Some paintings on wood, using the graining 

 of the wood as suggestive of the landscapes, are the 

 only attempts I have seen in modern art to carry out this 

 idea of Breughel's paintings on stones. The natural 

 markings of the wood give great variety to the compo- 

 sition of the landscape. This is very much increased 



