Lot Essay
The roll-top bureau, on commode base, is surmounted by a clock-centred and brass-inlaid cartonnier. The latter's Grecian stepped-plinth with tablet-bracket for bust or vase, is typical of the elegant antiuqe style invented in the 1780's by David Roentgen of Neuwied (d.1807), Europe's most celebrated cabinet-maker.
The pearl-wreathed clock-face in a golden triumphal-arched frame, is supported on a poetic-trophy of ribbon-tied laurels and set above a crepidoma-stepped plinth and tablet-pedestal fluted Doric columns correspond to those indented at the commode's corners. The design and quality of this clock is closely related to the oeuvre of Peter Kingzing (d.1816), who worked with Roentgen on many of his finest clocks and automata (see D. Fabian, Kinzing und Roentgen Uhren aus Neuweid, Wurzburg, 1983).
The pearl-wreathed clock-face in a golden triumphal-arched frame, is supported on a poetic-trophy of ribbon-tied laurels and set above a crepidoma-stepped plinth and tablet-pedestal fluted Doric columns correspond to those indented at the commode's corners. The design and quality of this clock is closely related to the oeuvre of Peter Kingzing (d.1816), who worked with Roentgen on many of his finest clocks and automata (see D. Fabian, Kinzing und Roentgen Uhren aus Neuweid, Wurzburg, 1983).