Front and Back

Unknown maker; three carvings by Albert Jansz; Kunstschranck, 1620-1630. Cabinet: ebony, chestnut, walnut, pearwood, boxwood, ivory, marble, semiprecious stones, enamel, palm wood, and tortoiseshell, 73 x 58 x 59 cm. Los Angelos, J. Paul Getty Museum. 

Assemblage:

Samiya Swoboda-Nichols, Assemblage, 2000. Shells, minerals, and other natural specimens, 43.2 x 47.5 x 48 cm. Beverly Hills, L.A., Edward Swoboda Collection.

In walking around the kunstschrank, the viewer "shifts among the sacred, the secular, the moral, and the natural" (note 1). The front, then, offers the "sacred" component; it focuses specifically on the passion of Christ. The ebony doors are carved with blasted trees, while oval plaques on each drawer reveal different scenes from the Passion. Instruments of the passion are also featured on the smaller, light-coloured ovals interspersed among the drawers (note 2).

Kunstschranck (back).

The blasted tree forms are echoed the back of the cabinet, which features a Cross among a desolate hill (the hill of Cavalry) (note 3). On the backside, as well, are marble inlays in geometric design, mirroring the organizational system of the front. In the diamonds at the corners of the back, the four elements are symbolized (note 4). If we interpret the front of the cabinet as "the sacred," the back may provide "the natural."

Taken cohesively, the front and back as a whole "encourages meditation on the nature of human existence within the Christian cosmology" (note 5).

Notes:

note 1. Barbara Stafford, Devices of Wonder: From the World in a Box to Images on a Screen. (Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2001), 14.

note 2. Frances Terpak, Devices of Wonder, 158.

note 3. Terpak, Devices of Wonder, 163.

note 4. For more on the specific symbolis depicted upon the kunstschrank, please refer to The Getty's “Cabinet Interactive Presentation,” http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/north_pavilion/cabinet/index.html. See also Terpak, Devices of Wonder, 158-65.