A South German Biedermeier mahogany, burr, walnut and parcel-gilt gun cupboard

MUNICH, PROBABLY BY JOHANN GEORG HILTL (1771-1845)

Details

A South German Biedermeier mahogany, burr, walnut and parcel-gilt gun cupboard
Munich, probably by Johann Georg Hiltl (1771-1845)
The triangular pediment above a rectangular panel, painted with a forest landscape in ink depicting stags and dear, above a panelled frieze with rounded corners, above a stiff-leaf border and above a pair of mirrored doors enclosing a plain green baize interior with slots for rifles, above an open section, flanked to either side by turned pilasters, on an inverted break-front plinth
249cm. high x 155cm. wide x 60cm. deep

Lot Essay

The black-painted decoration of deer and stags on the tablet panel in the cresting indicate that this cupboard was probably already initially intended as a Jagdschrank and to house a number of rifles. The slots in the interior, which are of recent date, hence clearly replace and earlier but similar arrangement. This type of decoration seems to have been a speciality of Munich and is generally associated with the workshop of Johann Georg Hiltl, who developed and perfected this technique. His work was favoured at the Bavarian Court and probably admired by Queen Caroline, whose initial features on an embroidered firescreen by Hiltl with similar black-painted decoration. (G. Himmelheber, Biedermeier 1815-1835, Munich, 1989, p. 109, no. 215)
See illustration

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