BRAUNSCHWEIG, CIRCA 1725

This impressive cabinet, with elaborate Brainesque pewter strapwork inlay retaining much of its original engraving on a richly marbled ground of golden walnut, belongs to a small group of similar collector's cabinets executed by an as yet unidentified Braunschweig workshop between 1725 and 1730. Of these, the documented examples were all commissioned by Duke August Wilhelm of Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel for his Graue Schloss, and these bear not only his arms along with lions emblematic of Braunschweig, but also his motto Parta Tueri. Two cabinets from the group, which display similar distinctive features to the inlay, such as the drapery canopies framing the coats-of-arms, are illustrated in H. Kreisel, Die Kunst des Deutschen Mobels: Spatbarock und Rokoko, Munich, 1970, figs. 89-90 and the group itself is exhaustively discussed in L. Baron Dory-Jobahaza, Die Sammlunsschranke des Braunschweiger Schlosses, Munich, 1964. The arms on the cabinet offered here are of a noble Braunschweig house, identified by the heraldic lions, but remain tantalisingly untraced.