Cabinet à poser peint de scènes de la Miséricorde.

A Flemish ebony veneered and tortoiseshell table cabinet mounted with painted panels. Antwerp, second half 17th century. Pearwood, blackened wood, red-tinted tortoiseshell, bone and ripple-cut borders. When closed: two doors and a hinged top containing a mirror and two painted panels on wood depicting The Good Samaritan and The Angel and Tobias. When opened: a central door enclosing a mirrored interior, seven small drawers and one lower large drawer. Both doors are set with two painted panels of which the right one depicts Hagar and the Angels and a later right panel Elia and the Angel. Bronze handles on both sides. Provenance: Bonhams, Edinburgh, 16.01.2019, lot 411 After purchasing this cabinet at Bonhams, the present owner found a fragment of a handwritten document (now framed in plexiglass), written by Matthew MacAlister (1758-1829), who was a colonel in the British East India Company during the Second Anglo-Mysore War (1780-1784). This document mentions his injured leg during his captivity in Seringapatam after their defeat in 1780 at the Battle of Pollilur in southern India. He was held prisoner for four years after which he was freed in 1874 by the legions of his brother Keith MacAlister (1803-1866). Transcription: Recto: The within hon[?] Ruiets[?] studied my leg hons [Honours degree], from 10th Sept 1780 to July 1784 in Seringapatam prison with Hyder Ally and his Son Tippoo M. Macalister [Signature] Verso: Results of Lt. [Lieutenant] M. Macalister Leg hons Seringapatam prison 41.5 x 48 x 48.5 cm (H.: 59 cm (met geopend deksel)) Lit.: M. Callaerts (ed.), Kunst- und Wunderkammer. Een aloude bankierstraditie in de 16de- en 17de eeuw. Antwerpen, 2021, p. 152-159 (ill.); Alan Tritton, When the Tiger Fought the Thistle: The Tragedy of Colonel William Baillie of the Madras Army, 2013.