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Lot Essay
This pair of chairs is related to a watercolour design for a mahogany open armchair executed for the Königliches Palais, Berlin, in 1808, and illustrated in M. Snodin, Karl Friedrich Schinkel: Universal Man, Exhibition Catalogue, London, 1991, p. 113, cat. 33. The shape is based on the sella curulis, in antiquity seat of authority and symbol of privileged rank. The chair was probably designed when Schinkel was working on the garden complex of the Charlottenhof in the 1830s.
Chairs of the same shape and with related lyre-shaped splats in the Münchner Stadtmuseum, Munich and at the Staatliche Schlösser und Gärten, Berlin, are illustrated in E. Schmuttermeier, Cast Iron from Central Europe, 1800-1850, Exhibition Catalogue, New York, 1994, p. 214, cat. 65, and p. 94, fig. 9 respectively. A pair of chairs of identical design in the Märkisches Museum, Berlin, are illustrated in E. Schmuttermeier, op.cit, p. 70, fig 22, and H. Mildenberger, 'Preussische Asthetik in Schleswig-Holstein',Weltkunst, 15 March 1986, p. 841, fig. 7
Chairs of the same shape and with related lyre-shaped splats in the Münchner Stadtmuseum, Munich and at the Staatliche Schlösser und Gärten, Berlin, are illustrated in E. Schmuttermeier, Cast Iron from Central Europe, 1800-1850, Exhibition Catalogue, New York, 1994, p. 214, cat. 65, and p. 94, fig. 9 respectively. A pair of chairs of identical design in the Märkisches Museum, Berlin, are illustrated in E. Schmuttermeier, op.cit, p. 70, fig 22, and H. Mildenberger, 'Preussische Asthetik in Schleswig-Holstein',Weltkunst, 15 March 1986, p. 841, fig. 7