BERLIN, CIRCA 1798

Details

A ROYAL GERMAN ORMOLU-MOUNTED, WHITE MARBLE AND MAHOGANY WRITING CABINET
BERLIN, CIRCA 1798
The superstructure with mirrored doors, enclosing two shelves and three drawers, flanked by pilasters above a base drawer, the lower structure with a full-width frieze drawer fitted with a reading slope above a cylinder shutter actioned by a pull-out gilt-tooled green leather-lined writing slide and enclosing a central compartment flanked by eight drawers, above a kneehole with pierced radiating recess flanked by further alabaster and marble columns with ormolu capitals, each side with three drawers and further pilasters, on short square tapering legs and castors, the mirror plates later, originally fitted with a musical organ
83 in. (210 cm.) high; 50 ½ in. (128 cm.) wide; 32 ¾ in. (83 cm.) deep

Provenance

Most probably acquired by Queen Caroline of Bavaria (1766-1841) from the Berlin marchand Carl August Siegling circa 1798/99 for the refurbished royal apartments in the Munich Residenz and recorded in an 1815 inventory in the second ante chamber. Following the death of King Max I Joseph of Bavaria in 1825 moved with the personal possessions of Queen Caroline to her country residence Schloss Tegernsee and illustrated there in a watercolour by Franz Xaver Nachtmann as the central piece of furniture of her private salon (reproduced here).

Literature

A Stiegel, Berliner Möbelkunst vom Ende des 18. bis zur Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts, München und Berlin, 2003, p. 385, ill p. 393.
A Stiegel, 'Ein Berliner Zylinderbureau: Zur Wiederentdeckung eines verlorenen Möbels der Königin Karoline von Bayern‘, Weltkunst, November 2000, p. 2386f.

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Lot Essay

This elegant bureau is part of a small group of four closely-related writing cabinets discussed by Dr Achim Stiegel (see Literature below) of which one other was also originally conceived with a musical movement. While the accomplished makers of these cabinets sadly remain unknown, the recorded royal Prussian provenance of one of these (now in the collections of the Landgraves of Hesse) and its signed clock movement clearly identify their Berlin origin. The costly production of such lavish pieces was only possible with the financial support of the big Berlin Meubleurs and an advertisement for one of the most important such dealers, Carl August Siegling, in the 1796 Journal for the Leipzig fair describes as the most expensive of the 90 listed items a Schreib-Bureau very similar to the present example.

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