By Valentina
Ninth appointment with Classic Monday: a wardrobe of the early ‘700 offers us the pretext to deepen the Lombard style for this type of furniture.
An essential element also in today’s furniture, the wardrobe is spreading more and more since the seventeenth century; flanking or replacing other types of furniture such as chests and being treated in different ways according to the geographical area of origin.
In fact, in Lombardy, less complex and artificial forms are developed than those made in other areas. Those of Piedmont, Genoa or Veneto where the flashy forms are justifiable by the presence of courts that also push private individuals to emulate their wealth. In Lombardy, on the contrary, the splendor in the Milanese palaces can be found above all in the wall decorations; The furniture maintains a character of modesty, a mirror of the austerity typical of the Counter-Reformation period.
Despite their simplicity, the seventeenth-century Lombard wardrobes are characterized by shapes that recall the architectural aesthetics of Renaissance city palaces.
The rigorous and squared setting recalls the facades, with the upper frame often decorated with denticles and the feet that support the body reminiscent of the shelves of pilasters. Even the geometric panels enclosed in frames and carved on the doors (usually two) are ornamental motifs that reflect the architectural scanning of the openings on the facades, marked by a precise and rigorous modularity. This type of wardrobe, despite being typical of the seventeenth century, continues and is adopted in the following century; Especially in the most peripheral areas, where the new taste is still slow to arrive or simply where these simpler forms are still preferred.
The Lombard wardrobe protagonist of this study dates back to the early ‘700
The not excessive decorativeness that characterizes the Lombard wardrobe between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is one of the main features that still makes it a piece of furniture much appreciated even in the furnishing of today’s homes.
