BRAUNSCHWEIG, EARLY 18TH CENTURY

The Germany city of Braunschweig has been an important city of commerce and trade since the middle ages and was a powerful center in the Hanseatic League starting in the 13th century. Braunschweig took on added importance as a center of court art after the Elector of Hannover, of the house of Braunschweig-Celle, became King of England as George I in 1714, causing his cousins, the Dukes of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel, who resided in Braunschweig rather than Hannover, to attain a more prominent position in their part of Germany. In the same year 1714, August Wilhelm succeeded as Duke of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel.

A characteristic feature of Braunschweig cabinet-making is the finely detailed inlay-work in various materials such as brass, ivory and, as featured in the present lot, pewter. This type of decoration is already apparent in the paneling installed in a cabinet room in Schloss Wolfenbüttel around 1720-1725 for the Duchess, see H. Kreisel, Die Kunst des deutschen Möbels, vol. II, Spätbarock und Rokoko, Munich, 1983, fig. 80. The highly intricate inlay of this cabinet relates this lot to a bureau cabinet sold Christie's, New York, 29 September 1999, lot 429. The elaborate Bérainesque engraved pewter strapwork inlay found on both cabinets suggests that these cabinets were produced in a highly advanced atelier. Cabinets of comparable decoration were all products of an unidentified Braunschweig workshop between 1725 and 1730. Of these, the documented examples were all commissioned by Duke August Wilhelm of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel for his Graue Schloss. Two cabinets from the group, which display similar distinctive features to the inlay, are illustrated in ibid., figs. 89-90. The group itself is exhaustively discussed in L. Dory-Jobahaza, Die Sammlunsschranke des Braunschweiger Schlösses, Munich, 1964.

The somber form of this lot is typical of the oeuvre of Braunschweig cabinetmakers. The cabinetmakers' guild in Braunschweig was exceptionally conservative, requesting aspiring members to make a conventional, rectangular Schrank as their masterpiece right up to the end of the eighteenth century. Occasionally an exception was granted: for example, in 1733 Joachim Sörmann was allowed to submit a Kontor der neuesten Façon (a writing desk in the latest fashion), see Kreisel, op. cit., p. 273.