Although Bison is best known for his vedute paintings, following in the tradition of Canaletto, Guardi and Marieschi, his oeuvre is widely varied, encompassing theatre designs, decorative schemes for grand villas in the Veneto, and elegant interior scenes such as this painting of a collector’s cabinet. This genre originated in Antwerp at the beginning of the seventeenth century, featuring lavish interiors crowded with a luxurious assortment of paintings, sculptures and exotic objects; a metaphor for learning and good taste.
Bison’s composition is based on a painting by Hans Jordaens III and Cornelis de Baellieur, now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. His use of different colours indicates that he was possibly working from an intermediary, as does his simplification of the scene. He has removed one of the groups of figures, and the paintings on the walls are less detailed. Ranging from landscapes, still lifes and history paintings, many seem to have come from the artist’s imagination. The painting being admired on the easel, however, is recognisable as Rubens’ Resurrection of Lazarus, sadly destroyed during the Second World War. Bison’s charming and elegant picture shows that the values of collectors in nineteenth-century Italy were not so different to those in sixteenth-century Flanders; knowledge, a discerning eye, and a desire to demonstrate these qualities.

The Florentine virtuoso, Odoardo Fantacchiotti, studied at the Academy of Fine Arts notably under the tutelage of Stefan Ricci and Aristodemo Costoli, though ultimately evolved his oeuvre to follow in the footsteps of Canova and Bartolini. Though completing a number of monuments throughout Florence, including those for the church of Santa Croce and the Uffizi arcade, it is his biblical and allegoric works of Eve, Susanna and Pandora for which he became renowned. In this final work, the artist glimpses a moment of tranquility despite ominous events to follow the opening of Pandora’s box. Pandora proved a commercial success for the artist and was produced by Fantacchiotti – and subsequently his son Cesare - exclusively for the Galeria Bazzanti.