Viceroyalty desk-paperboard. Peru, ca. 1700.

Viceroyalty desk-paperboard. Peru, ca. 1700.
Walnut wood
Boxwood, ebony and rosewood inlay.
It has a key.
Wrought iron feet.
Good state of preservation.
Presents marks of use.
Similar models are kept in the Museum of America in Madrid.
Measurements: 45 x 78 x 38 cm (closed); 45 x 78 x 77 cm (open); 123,5 x 78 x 38 cm (feet).

Exceptional desk-desk from the Viceroyalty period, with hinged front lid. Both the interior sample and the lid, the top and the flanks have been inlaid with exquisite marquetry work, combining boxwood, ebony and rosewood on walnut. The type of decoration denotes the fruitful fusion of influences between the autochthonous taste of indigenous art and the parameters imposed by the European guilds in viceregal Peru. Thus, the ornamental precepts of the baroque allied with the overflowing local imagination: tropical birds perched on flowery bouquets, folkloric characters in country attire and fawns running around in the jungle coexist with imperial eagles and rosettes inscribed in grids. The ornamental profusion is subsumed by a desire for order, which is achieved through the filleted contours on the drawers and the laurel borders. The typology of the piece of furniture, in the form of a parallelepiped, responds to the double function of wastebasket (with drawers and drawers for storing documents) and desk with a hinged lid.

From the first Spanish settlements in America, cabinetmaking developed in parallel to other arts and crafts. On the one hand, all types of furniture were exported to the colonies, and on the other hand, guilds of artists settled in the viceroyal cities, instilling European knowledge to the natives. In the type of furniture where stylistic syncretism is best manifested are desks and wastebaskets. Strictly speaking, the word "bargueño" with which this type of furniture is labeled should be limited to the stationery-desks made after the 19th century, not to those of the viceregal period. The name "vargueño" began to spread from the production of paper baskets in the town of Vargas de Toledo from the mid-nineteenth century.