Imposing writing cabinet set with its “contador”. Lima. Viceroyalty of Peru. 18th century.

Imposing writing cabinet set with its “contador”. Lima. Viceroyalty of Peru. 18th century.
This piece of furniture is decorated with inlaid shells - a technique known as "enconchado." The interior is made of red cedar covered with marquetry made from contrasting woods, tortoiseshell, stained bone and mother of pearl.
Total measurements: 114 x 110,5 x 33 cm. Lower body: 70 x 110,5 x 33 cm. Upper body: 55’5 x 78,8 x 25 cm.
Important example of Peruvian "enconchado" furniture. On each of its faces, as well as on the doors of the central body, there is a tortoiseshell and mother of pearl coat of arms of the Order of Our Lady of Mercy in an octagonal compartment in relief.
Both bodies of the desk have three sides each and are topped with various pinnacles which give them a marked architectural character. The lower one has two doors at the sides and a double central door, which hides four drawers behind it. The central section has another drawer.
The upper body follows the same scheme as the lower, but the sides do not open out with doors.
Among old inventories we find a definition for this type of furniture, which was very probably sold accompanied by a gaming table. As the curator Jorge Rivas describes (2007), "the highest strata of Colonial society in Latin America had an excessive taste for luxury. Enormous sums of money were invested in sumptuous items which came from all around the world. The merchandise from Europe and the Far East were in competition with local products, which were often even more luxurious than those which were imported." Rivas adds that this type of luxurious furniture was considered to be indispensable in showing a family’s social status. With regard to the technique used, "inlay was one of the most employed decorative techniques for decorating desks and writing cabinets. Generally, they were inlaid with precious materials such as bone, ivory, mother of pearl, ebony and tortoiseshell."
Jorge Rivas, who we quote, is currently the curator of the Frederick and Jan Mayer Center in the Denver Art Museum, and head of the Latin American Art department. He has correctly identified this furniture set as being originally from Peru, and, as we can read in Professor Gustavo Curiel’s interesting article: "it has been repeated, without any kind of basis, that this type of furniture was made in Mexico City, the Philippines, the Indo-Portuguese coast and continental Asia. Recently, Jorge Ribas has confirmed, after meticulous study and many comparisons, that these pieces were made in the Viceroyalty of Peru".
There are some comparable examples to this piece of furniture in the Dallas Meadows Museum, the Museo Pedro de Osma in Lima, the Museo Soumaya in Mexico and in the Buenamuerte church and convent in Lima.
Finally, there is an example with two body sections which is practically identical to ours which was sold at auction in Sotheby's in New York on the 5th November 1998 for $1690.

Bibliographic reference:
- Campos Carlés de Peña, M. (2013). Un legado que pervive en Hispanoamérica. El mobiliario del Virreinato del Peru de los siglos XVII y XVIII. (pp. 241-287). Ediciones El Viso.
- Curiel, G. (2009). Mostrador limeño. Imágenes, del Instituto de Investigaciones estéticas de Mexico. http://www.esteticas.unam.mx/revista_imagenes/imago/ima_curiel05.html
- Rivas, J. F. (2007). Observaciones sobre el origen, desarrollo y manufactura del mobiliario en América Latina. In J. J. Rishel y S. Stratton-Pruitt (Comps.), Revelaciones. Las artes en América Latina, 1492 - 1820. (pp. 498-499). Fondo de Cultura Económica.