Furniture

Masterpiece of a baroque writing cupboard

Berlin, 1771
Nut wood, veined not wood, maple and elm tree veneered with tie inlays of rose wood and fine, originally fire gilt fittings.
With adhesive label “Johann Frantz Miller Anno 1771 dem 25. May in Berlin“.
The piece of furniture equates in structure and quality the writing cupboard that was required by the Berlin carpenter’s guild to gain the master title in the late 18th century.
The work had to be produced within twenty weeks in an external workshop following strict instructions: the top had to be constructed with three drawers above a swung commode, the upper part with two doors had to be crowned by a swung gable.
This bureau exactly follows with its basic form that required design and offers furthermore fine decorative details such as the cube-shaped marquetry on the pilaster strips of the upper part or the carved ornaments, with whose the future master showed his abilities.
Height 230 cm, width 132 cm, depth 72 cm.
Stiegel, “Berliner Möbelkunst“, Munich 2003, page 55-58.

Freestanding bureauplat

France, Paris, around 1780
Attributed to Godefroy Dester (master since 1774).
Mahogany solid and veneered, with original bronze and leather upholstery on the top and the two drawers.
Height 77 cm, width 164 cm, depth 75 cm

Elegant Louis XV chest of drawers

Mömpelgard (Montbéliard), around 1750
Abraham Nicolas Coulern
Rosewood veneer, rich, original silver-plated bronze fittings, and original marble top stamped several times by the Württemberg court cabinetmaker Abraham Nicolas Coulern.
From the estate of Margrave Carl Friedrich of Baden (1728-1811), married to Caroline Luise of Hessen-Darmstadt since January 28, 1751.
Crowned monogram of the Margrave and later Elector of Baden on the key, probably a gift from Duke Friedrich Eugen of Württemberg to the House of Baden.
Height 82 cm, width 65 cm, depth 43 cm

Baroque pair of stilt commodes

Italy, Venice, around 1750
Walnut and plum veneered, cambered on all sides, original gilt fittings.
Height 73 cm, width 70 cm

Monumental Brunswick Baroque cabinet from Langenstein Castle

Coniferous wood, walnut, ivory, and pewter
Brunswick, around 1730

The female allegories of the virtues patience and bravery inlaid in ivory may be considered a characteristic of richly executed Brunswick cabinets of the early 18th century. On this cabinet, they are combined with other finely executed ornamental details in engraved ivory and pewter; equally remarkable are the floral carvings engraved in the center of the pilasters. These sculptural ornaments create an aesthetic connection between the capitals of the pilasters and the wide-spreading feet carved as double lion claws. The base of the furniture with the lion claws is unique and gives the cabinet its individual, impressive identity.

The inventory 'Langenstein' has been preserved on the back of the cabinet.
Langenstein manor and castle belonged to Prince Heinrich of Prussia, brother of Frederick the Great. Prince Heinrich sold the estate and the inventory to Maria Antoinette Baroness of Branconi in 1776.
Baroness Branconi was the mistress of Hereditary Prince Karl Wilhelm of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel.
She was considered a great and remarkable personality and was called the most beautiful woman in Germany. She had a close friendship with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Baroness Branconi led an open, social life in Langenstein until her death.
Later, the furniture came to the Rimpau Collection in the Gleimhaus Halberstadt, where it survived all the turmoil of war.

The cabinet is published by Andrea Schneider,
“Braunschweiger Möbel des 18. Jahrhunderts”, Brunswick 2021, page 56-56, no. K 6.

Provenance: Prince Henry of Prussia ; Maria Antoinetta Baroness of Branconi ; Rimpau Collection in the Gleimhaus Museum, Halberstadt.

Height: 240 cm, width: 245 cm, depth: 95 cm

Rare salon table

Turin around 1750

Poplar with original lacquer painting
The richly carved salon table is decorated with lacquer painting on all sides, gilded "C" curves form the four legs. They end at a curved star base decorated by flowers.
With the table top in elaborate pietra-dura technique, the table represents a wonderful example of the rich Turin furniture art of the 18th century.

Height: 83 cm, width: 66 cm, depth: 58 cm

Rare miniature secretary

Lime, walnut, burr walnut and beech
Palatinate, around 1760-1770

The swingingly shaped, finely crafted small piece of furniture has two large and eleven smaller drawers and is operated by a central lock. Even in such a piece of furniture, which hardly served practical purposes but was intended for the owner's pure pleasure, the carpenter lived out the typically German predilection for complicated locks and sophisticated mechanisms.
Miniature furniture of this elaborate design was a great luxury in the 18th century and are very rarely preserved in such good condition.

Height: 78 cm, width: 56 cm, depth: 30 cm

French corner cabinet, transition, Paris around 1775

Oak, rosewood, amaranth, lemon, burnt, stained, marked with marking stamp, Charles Topino

This single-door, richly inlaid corner cabinet is very elaborately decorated with an artfully curved front and gilt bronze mounts.
The central door is decorated with a large bouquet of flowers in a tall vase.

The moving form and the quality decoration show the transition from Louis XV to French classicism. Charles Topino, (born 1735, master 1773) was highly respected already during his lifetime and known for mostly smaller furniture with highly qualitative inlays in precious exotic woods.

Height: 86 cm, depth: 41 cm

Pomp cabinet with painted scenes from Ovid's Metamorphoses

Antwerp around 1650
Padouk veneered with ebony, red underlaid tortoise shell, inlaid with composition and fittings of gilded copper

The two-door cabinet stands on its original stand with six richly turned ebonized legs and a tortoiseshell veneered frame hiding a large shelf.
Opening the central doors, the rich pictorial program surprises with painted scenes on 16 copper plates, mostly from Ovid's Metamorphoses.

The scenes are executed in a style influenced by Peter Paul Rubens - the city's most famous artist. Antwerp became the most important European center for the production of pomp cabinets in the 17th century. It took over the role of Augsburg, which had been a leader for such luxury furniture until the 30-year war.

As usual, the two large scenes in the door are the most carefully painted, the left door depicts Fama taking Hersilia to heaven, the right door depicts Apollo/Mercury spying Aglauros, Pandrosos, and Herse, the daughters of Kekrops. Both scenes can be interpreted as allegories of peace and probably refer to the end of the 80-year war in the Netherlands in 1648.

On the drawers and the middle doors are depicted popular metamorphoses such as Pan and Syrinx, Jupiter and Callisto, Procris and Cephalus, Meleager and Atalante, and Vertumnus and Pomona.

For the most valuable cabinets, the combination of ebony veneer, wavy moldings and tortoise shell, backed with red foil to better show off the tortoise shell, is quite typical. In addition, there are small ebony panels inlaid with artful motifs in an artificial, shimmering mass that imitates colored marble or stone. This technique, which was also used elaborately in the interior, made the Antwerp cabinets particularly precious.
The small doors in the middle of the display front are decorated on the inside in the same technique as on the outside. These small doors close a so-called perspective, a small room with mirrored walls and a very refined patterned floor in bone and tortoise shell, on which a small valuable piece of art or goldsmith's work could be placed; such perspectives distinguish Antwerp art cabinets.

Art cabinets of this type spread the fame of the city of Scheldt as an art center and were the most sought-after luxury goods throughout Europe. Very few pieces of this quality have been preserved and the cabinet presented here is a particularly precious example.
It is a great pleasure that it has been preserved in this condition in private ownership.

Height: 195 cm, width: 127 cm, depth: 54 cm

Canapé with Aubusson cover

Walnut, richly carved,
Lyon, around 1770, attributed to Pierre Nogaret

The artfully, richly carved walnut frame is typical for the work of Pierre Nogaret (1718-1771), a Paris-born menuisier working in Lyon. The original cover in Aubusson tapestry is very well-preserved and already shows elements of early classicism, for example, the laurel medallions hung on bows with representations of the seasons of spring and winter. The canapé is a very high-quality late work of Nogaret, which is also testified by the realistically carved flowers on the backrest.

Height: 100 cm, width: 200 cm, depth: 75 cm

Magnificent writing cabinet

Graslitz in Bohemia around 1760

Inlaid with fine grain birch wood, walnut, maple and plum colored in red and green, with original gold-plated fittings.
In terms of structure and decoration, the writing furniture corresponds to a group of comparable high-quality chests of drawers and cabinets summarized under the technical term "Erfurt furniture”. The inlays with two large, gallant shepherd scenes in landscapes with ruined architecture are framed by extremely fine rococo ornaments painted in black solder. If copper engravings were applied to the furniture in the Arte Povera manner - mainly in the case of Italian furniture - this secretary was decorated with a combination of inlay and artistic painting.
The necessary work steps were carried out by specialized artisans. This representative piece of furniture could only be manufactured to such perfection with the interaction of marketeer and painter. A counterpart of comparable quality from the possession of the princes and counts of Schönburg is kept in the castle museum in Glauchau. This secretary is shown at Kreisel / Himmelheber.
Height 200 cm, width 131 cm, depth 70 cm.
Kreisel, “Die Kunst des deutschen Möbels“, Munich 1973, vol. 2, fig. 904 as „Erfurt writing cupboard“.
Voigt, “Möbel aus schönburgischen Schlössern“, Glauchau 2003, p. 55-69.

Small work table or desk

Coniferous wood veneered with walnut elm rosewood and boxwood
Berlin, probably Spindler workshop, around 1765

The skillful use of the heavily grained wood, which has been applied to the front and back practically independently of the division into three fields, and the light, feathery rocailles in the corners of the top, are reminiscent of the Bayreuth period of the famous cabinetmaker Johann Friedrich and Heinrich Wilhelm Spindler. They worked for Margravine Wilhelmine of Bayreuth and, from 1763, for her brother Frederick the Great in Potsdam. The extremely elegant table dispenses almost entirely with fittings, allowing the beautiful forms to speak for themselves. The drawer has an unusual division into many compartments.

Height: 74 cm, width: 64 cm, depth: 50 cm

Writing bureau

Walnut, with various native woods
Probably Mannheim, surroundings Jakob Kieser, around 1775

This representative piece of furniture, derived in form from the Parisian 'bureau en pente', demonstrates with the greatest refinement the skills of the cabinetmaker. The intricately cambered furniture is largely crafted in walnut and veneered with the finest marquetry executed in many native woods. The center of the cover is decorated with a beautiful rococo cartouche with a bird in richly grained walnut. The writing furniture has several intricate mechanisms: for example, behind the cover is a sliding compartment that locks on two sides in a hard-to-find location, providing access for three carefully concealed drawers. The bottom right drawer houses a safe, which is again difficult to access.
Stylized lilies appear repeatedly in the marquetry; they even decorate the corners of the inner surface of the writing cover upholstered with oilcloth. Perhaps these heraldic lilies refer to the orderer of the furniture: richly executed writing cabinets were the furniture most identified with the ordering person at all in the 18th century.

Height: 100 cm, width: 118 cm, depth: 60 cm