The unique suite of panels presented here offers a reflection upon another masterpiece, left to us by the Margravine Sibylla Augusta von Baden-Baden (1675–1733) when she created the "Florentiner Zimmer" in her villa "La Favorite" in Förch near Rastatt (fig. 1). This exceptional cabinet, which took almost ten years to build, was begun as early as 1723, when the first panels commissioned were already delivered. Combining hard stones, glass mosaics, paintings on agate, scagliola, painted glass, mirrors and mother-of-pearl inlays, the subtle and singular decorative scheme embellishes a room originally intended to be a part of the suite of reception apartments for the Margravine’s son during her regency of the duchy.

It is undeniable that this project was only possible because of the personal ties the Margravine had with the court of Florence through the marriage of her sister Anna Maria Franziska to Giovanni Gastone de’ Medici, son and heir of heir of Cosimo III. Although the Medici court was in decline, its manufactories, and particularly the Galleria dei Lavori, where pietre dure objects were created, retained an aura of excellence that continued to radiate throughout Europe, animated by the genius of figures including Baccio Cappelli, Antonio Ciolli, Andrea Ghinghi and Giuseppe Antonio Torricelli.

The present panels are in effect the only other examples known today of the series of designs created for “La Favorite” and still decorating the "Florentiner Zimmer". Although dated to the beginning of the eighteenth century, the present panels can be related to a larger group of examples representing animals which date from the mid-seventeenth century.

This group included a number of smaller and less elaborate panels, most of whose designs were directly influenced by engravings, particularly those of Antonio Tempesta and Stradanus (fig. 2). This series of small panels, clearly made to decorate cabinets, is however very rare and to this day only a few examples presenting a complete set incorporated within a cabinet are known. This decorative programme clearly finds its inspiration in the legends of Orpheus, and one of the most famous scenes represents Orpheus charming the animals, which is often found in a central position on cabinets embellished with these panels.

A group of these panels, on black backgrounds, are found on the famous cabinet attributed to Domenico Cucci sold by the March Foundation in 2009 for a price of £4,500,000 pounds (fig. 3); only four other cabinets decorated with these panels are known, including one in the collections of the Hofburg Palace in Vienna and another the collections of the Detroit Institute of Arts.

The group of these panels on a white background, even smaller in dimensions, are found on only one cabinet now in the collections of the Saxe-Coburg family at Callenberg Castle; a smaller suite of eleven panels are found in a private collection, and a few panels from the series seem to have been recycled into a table in the Château de Versailles (fig. 4) and onto a chest of drawers in the Getty Museum (fig. 5).

While these panels have plain white backgrounds, the present group of panels have backgrounds made from onyx, painted on its reverse to simulate the sky in accordance with the burgeoning Baroque tastes at the outset of the eighteenth century. The compositions in the present set are also much larger than the aforementioned examples, like the more elaborate central panel of the table preserved at Versailles. The taste for elaborate cloud backgrounds is also evident in the production of landscapes rendered in hard stones at the beginning of the eighteenth century and especially in the known works of Baccio Cappelli.

An inventory number, '8475', has recently been discovered on the reverse of the panels. It is believed to be an inventory number of the Duchy of Lorraine, likely dating from the time of their succession to the Medici dynasty in Tuscany in the mid-eighteenth century.

Fig. 1. The “Florentiner Zimmer" in the villa "La Favorite", Förch, Germany.

Fig. 2. Antonio Tempesta, Tiger, engraving.

Fig. 3. Cabinet formerly in the March Foundation.

Fig. 4. Table, Château de Versailles.

Fig. 5. Chest of Drawers, Getty Museum, Los Angeles, 76.DA.9.2.

Fig. 6. Panel from the present series; engraving by Stradanus.