A RARE AND FINE SOUTH GERMAN COPPER-GILT AND EBONISED TABLE CABINET

A RARE AND FINE SOUTH GERMAN COPPER-GILT AND EBONISED TABLE CABINET

IN THE MANNER OF THE WORKSHOPS OF MELCHIOR BAUMGARTNER (1621-1686), BOAS ULRICH (1550-1623) AND MATTHIAS WALBAUM (1590-1632), AUGSBURG, C.1600-1650

with an arrangement of eight drawers around a central cupboard, the fronts each with a gilt copper plaque chased with the labours of the months and with a sign of the zodiac in a cloud each with an inscription, with some pencil inscriptions to the drawer linings, the top right drawer front signed 'Mertz' on a later ebonised stand

37.5cm high, 49.5cm wide, 29.5cm deep (the cabinet), 124.7cm high overall

Provenance

The Roderick and Valentine Butler Collection.

Catalogue Note

For a related cabinet sold in these rooms see Exbury House: Le Goût Rothschild, 5th October 2022, lot 214 for an armourer's cabinet with similarly worked panels which sold for £40,000 (hammer).

This fine cabinet would have been commissioned for a chamber containing precious artworks and curiosities, a fashionable collecting pursuit among the aristocracy and wealthy at the time of manufacture. It would have contained natural and man-made items, with a particular leaning towards scientific instruments, intended to suggest the wealth and connoisseurship of the owner and to impress their guests.