Virtual guided tour
The Rubens House > Collection > Virtual guided tour > First-floor rooms > Master bedroom (13) > Curio cabinet
Curio cabinet
The interior of the doors, the lid and the little drawers and compartments are decorated with paintings depicting mythological scenes based on compositions by Rubens.
Most are taken from the Metamorphoses of the Roman poet Ovid (43 BC-AD 17). One of the scenes we see here is the story of the famous Greek hunters Meleager and Atalanta. The painting on the lid of the cabinet shows the two heroes in pursuit of the Calydonian boar. On the front right door Meleager gives Atalanta the head of the boar as a trophy.
The cabinet clearly demonstrates the great appeal of this type of furniture: the buyer acquired not only a cabinet for storing his valuables, but also a miniature collection of mythological paintings modelled on the work of the great Rubens.
Curio cabinet
Antwerp, seventeenth century
oak inlaid with ebony, decorated with paintings on copper