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Lot Essay
This urn-supported cabinet with mosaiced doors displaying oval-medallioned escutcheons in paterae-enriched tablets is surmounted by sphere-capped pedestals and a stepped drawer-chest with desk-slide butressed between its voluted pediment. Its escutcheons and sun-burst medallion are richly inlaid with a chequered mosaic, while its interior is further enriched with filigreed tablets and jewelled red marble. The door-interiors are similarly inlaid with sun-burst medallions between arched niches and urn-capped herms; while the cabinet's thriumphal-arched drawers and medallioned 'tabernacle' compartment are likewise inlaid with sunbursts.
A table cabinet in the Palazzo del Quirinale, Rome, has a similar flat sculptural treatment of the surfaces and applied roundels as well as the very distinctive bracket and three-quarter bun feet (A. González-Palacios, Il Patrimonio artistico del Quirinale, I Mobili Italiani, Milan, 1996, pp. 56-57, cat. 10). That cabinet has a central fall-front flanked by two doors and is essentially not inlaid or decorated besides the carvings. The interior is similarly segmented with a central section flanked by a narrow column of drawers and raised pilasters and then again by a column of wider drawers to each side. It is almost certain that these two cabinets can be attributed to the same craftsmen, although this cabinet is far more elaborate and extensively decorated than that in the Quirinale.
The designs for these cabinets in the manner of Wendel Dietterlin and Wenzel Jamnitzer relate to ornamental patterns by the Strassbourg cabinet-makers Hans Jakob Ebelmann and Jakob Guckeisen, issued in Cologne by Johann Bussemacher around 1600 (H. Kreisel, Die Kunst des deutschen Möbels, Munich, 1968, vol. I, fig. 247). There are a number of tables and cabinets in the Residenz, Munich, which bear similarities to this cabinet. A library table/cabinet (now destroyed), believed to be after designs by the court architect Friedrich Sustris (circa 1540-1600) of circa 1590-1600, employs the same roundels applied to the surface and flat treatment of the panelling (B. Langer and A. Herzog von Württemberg, ed., Die Möbel der Residenz München, Munich, 1996, vol. II, pp. 50-51, cat. 2). A curious pair of tables made of mother-of-pearl and silver-inlaid ebony (op. cit., pp. 269-273, cat. 76) also diplay the same unusual use of materials. These can be attributed to Peter Herz (circa 1590-1643) and are recorded in a delivery to the elector Maximilian I in 1637. Herz, largely unrecorded, moved to Munich and is recorded as having delivered numerous works to Maximilian I. His origins are in Augsburg, the centre in the 16th and 17th Century for the production of table cabinets combining exotic materials. Augsburg cabinet-makers had particular access to these materials because of their frequent contacts with Spain, delivering works to Philip II and his wife, who was an Austrian princess. Spain, of course, imported mother-of-pearl, ivory and exotic woods from the Colonies.
A table cabinet in the Palazzo del Quirinale, Rome, has a similar flat sculptural treatment of the surfaces and applied roundels as well as the very distinctive bracket and three-quarter bun feet (A. González-Palacios, Il Patrimonio artistico del Quirinale, I Mobili Italiani, Milan, 1996, pp. 56-57, cat. 10). That cabinet has a central fall-front flanked by two doors and is essentially not inlaid or decorated besides the carvings. The interior is similarly segmented with a central section flanked by a narrow column of drawers and raised pilasters and then again by a column of wider drawers to each side. It is almost certain that these two cabinets can be attributed to the same craftsmen, although this cabinet is far more elaborate and extensively decorated than that in the Quirinale.
The designs for these cabinets in the manner of Wendel Dietterlin and Wenzel Jamnitzer relate to ornamental patterns by the Strassbourg cabinet-makers Hans Jakob Ebelmann and Jakob Guckeisen, issued in Cologne by Johann Bussemacher around 1600 (H. Kreisel, Die Kunst des deutschen Möbels, Munich, 1968, vol. I, fig. 247). There are a number of tables and cabinets in the Residenz, Munich, which bear similarities to this cabinet. A library table/cabinet (now destroyed), believed to be after designs by the court architect Friedrich Sustris (circa 1540-1600) of circa 1590-1600, employs the same roundels applied to the surface and flat treatment of the panelling (B. Langer and A. Herzog von Württemberg, ed., Die Möbel der Residenz München, Munich, 1996, vol. II, pp. 50-51, cat. 2). A curious pair of tables made of mother-of-pearl and silver-inlaid ebony (op. cit., pp. 269-273, cat. 76) also diplay the same unusual use of materials. These can be attributed to Peter Herz (circa 1590-1643) and are recorded in a delivery to the elector Maximilian I in 1637. Herz, largely unrecorded, moved to Munich and is recorded as having delivered numerous works to Maximilian I. His origins are in Augsburg, the centre in the 16th and 17th Century for the production of table cabinets combining exotic materials. Augsburg cabinet-makers had particular access to these materials because of their frequent contacts with Spain, delivering works to Philip II and his wife, who was an Austrian princess. Spain, of course, imported mother-of-pearl, ivory and exotic woods from the Colonies.