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Lot Essay
This pair of neoclassical games tables are a fine example of David Roentgen's mature production of the 1780s. Their complex mechanism enables each restrained table to be transformed into into four different positions with their individual uses. Apparently this multi-functional type of furniture enjoyed continuous popularity, reflecting the 18th-Century love for complicated mechanisms and unexpected surprises. It was this mechanical aspect to Roentgen's furniture that was particularly prized by his contemporaries, being singled out for praise by even the greatest German writer of the time, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. For his most elaborate pieces Roentgen collaborated with the clockmaker from Neuwied, Peter Kinzing, and after he had sold an automaton produced together with Kinzing to Queen Marie-Antoinette in 1785 he was appointed ébéniste mécanicien du Roi et de la Reine, a rare distinction which had previously been conferred, in 1760, upon the famous Jean-François Oeben (1721-1763), who like Roentgen was of German origin.
David Roentgen produced the first mechanical tables of this neoclassical model in 1771, for his progressive and exacting patron, Prince Leopold III Friedrich Franz von Anhalt-Dessau. The Prince placed them at his revolutionary country house at Wörlitz, where they remain (D. Fabian, Abraham und David Roentgen, Das noch aufgefundene Gesamtwerk ihrer Möbel- und Uhrenkunst in Verbindung mit der Uhrmacherfamilie Kinzing in Neuwied, Bad Neustadt/Saale, 1996, Nos. 47a-b). The Wörlitz tables are still decorated with marquetry, as are the richly mounted pair made for Roentgen's principal client of the mid-1770's, Prince Charles of Lorraine, Governor of the Austrian Netherlands, which are preserved at the Museum für Angewandte Kunst in Vienna (Fabian, Nos. 67 and 68). In the 1780's, when Roentgen favoured plain mahogany veneers instead of colourful marquetry, this model continued to be popular with princely patrons, as is demonstrated by a very closely related example now at Pavlovsk which must have formed part of Roentgen's extensive deliveries to the Russian court from 1783 onwards (Fabian, No. 103).
A single games table of this model, slightly differently mounted, sold Christie's, London, 7 July, 2005, lot 535 (£46,500).
David Roentgen produced the first mechanical tables of this neoclassical model in 1771, for his progressive and exacting patron, Prince Leopold III Friedrich Franz von Anhalt-Dessau. The Prince placed them at his revolutionary country house at Wörlitz, where they remain (D. Fabian, Abraham und David Roentgen, Das noch aufgefundene Gesamtwerk ihrer Möbel- und Uhrenkunst in Verbindung mit der Uhrmacherfamilie Kinzing in Neuwied, Bad Neustadt/Saale, 1996, Nos. 47a-b). The Wörlitz tables are still decorated with marquetry, as are the richly mounted pair made for Roentgen's principal client of the mid-1770's, Prince Charles of Lorraine, Governor of the Austrian Netherlands, which are preserved at the Museum für Angewandte Kunst in Vienna (Fabian, Nos. 67 and 68). In the 1780's, when Roentgen favoured plain mahogany veneers instead of colourful marquetry, this model continued to be popular with princely patrons, as is demonstrated by a very closely related example now at Pavlovsk which must have formed part of Roentgen's extensive deliveries to the Russian court from 1783 onwards (Fabian, No. 103).
A single games table of this model, slightly differently mounted, sold Christie's, London, 7 July, 2005, lot 535 (£46,500).