THE RELIEFS AND OTHER ASSOCIATED METAL ELEMENTS SOUTH GERMAN, CIRCA 1600

It is impossible to reconstruct exactly what form the present cabinet would have had originally. Indeed, some of the metal elements are from different hands and possibly even dates. What is obvious, however, is that with its large group of dramatic and high-relief plaques, combined with the highly worked etched decorative panels throughout, this would have been an important display cabinet or casket. With its dramatic contrast of gold and steel, together with the complex arrangement of high relief plaques, it would probably have formed the centerpiece of a princely Kunstkammer.

One example that might indicate what a magnificent display the present plaques would have formed, with its combination of ormolu mounted high-relief steel plaques, also in a complex iconographical arrangement, is in the Hanns Schell Collection, Graz. (see E. Berger, Prunk-Kassetten: Europäische Meisterwerke aus acht Jahrhunderten, 1998, Stuttgart, no. 108).

The decorative etched metalwork on the panels of the base and those that frame the drawers (as well as the three extra panels) all clearly relate to the arms, armour and locks being produced in Northern Italy and South Germany in the late 16th and early 17th century. By the early 16th century, there are examples of this same high-relief etching on caskets, with the same scrolling floral elements as on the present pieces (ibid, nos. 90-92).