“Flötnerschrank” (Flötner cabinet)

Museum Tucherschloss und Hirsvogelsaal, HI Moe 003
Double storey cabinet with two columns

The diplomat and collector Heinrich von Tucher (1853-1925) had probably acquired this cabinet in Nuremberg for Tucherschloss. This piece of furniture combines the two-storey structure of Gothic cabinets with ornamental decoration according to German Renaissance forms. There are several examples in a similar design, among others in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, which can be proven to have been made in Nuremberg around the middle of the 16th century.

The cabinet consists of five parts placed one on top of the other. The base and belt each have two drawers. The doors of the carcasses on top of them are doubled with carved reliefs with vases, leafy vines and volute decoration. The whole carcass has two Tuscan columns in front of it with scale-like foliage decorations at the bottom, standing on pedestals. The columns support the entablature, with egg-and-dart, dentil moulding and bucrania frieze (partly supplemented). All fittings are original.

The reliefs, columns, entablature, mouldings in dark oak contrast with the light, heavily grained ash veneer on the surfaces. This design element as well as bucrania friezes, volute and vase decorations appear on furniture designs by Peter Flötner (c. 1490-1546), which is why both the design and the production have been attributed to him. Researchers now doubt this, but the use of Flötner’s ornamental designs is not questioned.

Angelika Lindner