POSSIBLY BY JOHANN PUCHWISER, MUNICH, CIRCA 1725-1730

This pair of wonderful commodes was created in South Germany in a manner directly influenced by the oeuvre of André-Charles Boulle. Combining tortoiseshell and brass in the French manner was very popular and widely practiced in the German lands throughout the first half of the eighteenth century. There were, however, regional differences and adaptations of the Boulle technique. Ebony and pewter, for example, were often used in major artistic centers of the Holy Roman Empire. Vienna, Augsburg and Munich were among the most important cities where a Germanic version of Boulle inlay was created. During the eighteenth century, walnut-veneered furniture inlaid with brass and pewter was most typical of Augsburg cabinet-making but could also be found throughout Swabia and Bavaria, see H. Kreisel, Die Kunst des Deutschen Möbels, vol. 2, Munich, 1970, p. 314. Sometimes further enriched with ivory or bone, this type of marquetry decoration resulted in a particularly warm and distinctive look. Juxtaposing the rich and deep tones of figured walnut with glossy brass and pewter, furniture created in this unique manner was most popular during the second quarter of the eighteenth century.

A pair of nearly identical commodes, formerly in the Bavarian Royal Collection and recorded in the Elector’s bedroom at the Neues Schloss Schleißheim in 1755 and 1761, is currently preserved at the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich (inv. nrs. 5143 and 5144), see G. Hojer, Die Möbel der Schlösser Nymphenburg und Schleißheim, Munich, 2000, pp. 286-287. The shape, the materials used and the type of inlay of the Munich commodes are so closely related to this pair that they must have been created in the same workshop. The engraved decoration of the commodes from Schleißheim is basically identical to that on these works, depicting scenes of the hunt and the life of peasants. There are only five other known commodes of this type: a pair in Schloss Hohenzollern in Sigmaringen; a single commode in Schloss Aschach, northern Franconia; and a further pair in Tsarkoe Selo, St. Petersburg, Russia, see ibid. p. 287. The above commodes and the Munich examples differ only in details of decoration and the handles: the Munich commodes have pulls, whereas the other examples have handles cast with masks. Although this group of distinctive commodes cannot be attributed to a specific maker with certainty, it has been suggested that they might have been executed by one of the most well-known German cabinet-makers of the eighteenth century, Johann Puchwiser, see ibid. p. 287. The Boulle-type marquetry and the overall form and construction of these commodes relate to Puchwiser’s oeuvre, and he is known to have delivered a pair of commodes to the electoral court in 1729 that were listed in the 1755 inventory. These commodes could be the ones now in the collection of the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum.

Believed to have trained in Vienna, Puchwiser began working for Prince Elector Max Emanuel II of Bavaria (1662-1726) around 1702, after gifting the Elector a pewter, brass and tortoiseshell marquetry box, with the Wittelsbach’s coat-of-arms, which displayed his full mastery of the novel marquetry technique, now in the collection of the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich, Inv. Nr. R3906. Named hof galanterie kistler (court cabinet-maker) by the Elector in 1715, Puchwiser remained in this position even after Max Emanuel’s death, but does not seem to be recorded working after the end of 1729 and his death on 11th April 1744.