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Lot Essay
Augsburg emerged from the middle of the 16th century as the German centre of luxury cabinet making for the international market. In particular, the development of marquetry contributed to this prominent position, favoured by the ready availability of a variety of indigenous woods and the reputation that Augsburg had the best craftsmen able to cut thin layers of veneers in the most intricate motifs (C.S. Wood, ‘The Perspective Treatise in Ruins: Lorenz Stöer, Geometria et perspectiva, 1567’, Studies in the History Of Art, no. 59, p. 246).
Generally Augsburg marquetry depicts trompe l’oeil architectural vistas which derive from Italian Renaissance discoveries of Euclidean perspective shown in intarsia in Italian churches and princely studioli. However there were other forms of figurative intarsia, including religious subject matters as the ones on the cabinet here offered. The marquetry scenes include : the annunciation, the circumcision, the adoration of the shepherds, the adoration of the Wise Men, Samson slaying the lion and Samson destroying the house of the philistines.
Marquetry panels remained popular throughout the ages and were frequently re-used to new shapes of cabinets as in this case. Another example of reuse of early German marquetry panels is seen on a chest of drawers probably made in Turin in the middle of the 18th century now at Waddesdon Manor ( Geoffrey de Bellaigue, The James A. de Rothschild collection at Waddesdon Manor, Furniture, Clocks and Gilt Bronzes, Fribourg, 1974, no. 119).
Generally Augsburg marquetry depicts trompe l’oeil architectural vistas which derive from Italian Renaissance discoveries of Euclidean perspective shown in intarsia in Italian churches and princely studioli. However there were other forms of figurative intarsia, including religious subject matters as the ones on the cabinet here offered. The marquetry scenes include : the annunciation, the circumcision, the adoration of the shepherds, the adoration of the Wise Men, Samson slaying the lion and Samson destroying the house of the philistines.
Marquetry panels remained popular throughout the ages and were frequently re-used to new shapes of cabinets as in this case. Another example of reuse of early German marquetry panels is seen on a chest of drawers probably made in Turin in the middle of the 18th century now at Waddesdon Manor ( Geoffrey de Bellaigue, The James A. de Rothschild collection at Waddesdon Manor, Furniture, Clocks and Gilt Bronzes, Fribourg, 1974, no. 119).