A North German walnut cupboard `Danziger Schapp'

LATE 17TH CENTURY

Details

A North German walnut cupboard `Danziger Schapp'
Late 17th Century
The moulded arched overhanging cornice centred by a figure of St. John the Evangelist flanked by cherubs supporting a crown and surrounded by extensive pierced scrolling acanthus, above a pair of doors each centred by a raised rounded eared rectangular panel and with figures to the corners, above ribbon-tied trailing foliage, flanked and divided by raised pilasters with corinthean capitals enclosing a plain panelled interior, above a base drawer with two simular horizontal panels with carved foliage, on massive canted bun feet
261cm. high x 220cm. wide x 74cm. deep

Lot Essay

A related `Danziger Schapp', with similar massive overhanging cornice and raised panels in the doors is in the collection of the Kunstgewerbemuseum Schloß Köpenick in Berlin (H. Kreisel G. Himmelheber, Die Kunst des deutschen Möbels, Vol.I, fig.512). A drawing with a virtually identical cupboard door by J. A. Beyerle, dated 1708, in the Kunstbibliothek of the Staatliche Museen Preußischer Kulturbesitz in Berlin, displays the same distinctive multipile mouldings enclosing a vacant figured-walnut panel. (ibid, fig.546).