Cabinet

Museum Tucherschloss und Hirsvogelsaal, HI Moe 009
Cabinet with figural inlays

Heinrich von Tucher (1853-1925) had acquired this piece of furniture in 1916 from the estate of Paul Meyerheim (Berlin) at Rudolph Lepke, Kunst-Auctions-Haus, as Italian 16th-17th century furniture.

The two-door cabinet stands on a base frame with pull-out writing surface and drawer. The doors are inlaid with two muses in clair-obscure technique, Terpsichore on the left, Calliope on the right. The insides of the doors are decorated with bouquets of flowers in an oval. The inside is divided by 15 drawers, a flap and a tabernacle door. Behind this are two drawers and access to a secret compartment. The hunting scenes on the upper drawers are inlaid with veneers of different colours. The inner doors and lower drawers have auricular style motifs such as masks and vine bouquets.

The themes, motifs, veneers and inlay work technique originate from different periods. Hunting scenes exist in comparable cabinets from the end of the 16th century. Auricular style ornamentation as inlay is common in the second half of the next century, but the clair-obscure technique only at the beginning of the 18th century. It can therefore be assumed that the cabinet was made at the end of the 16th century, modified in the 19th century, and supplemented by the base frame. Indications of this are subsequent cut-outs in the drawer fronts for hinges, cut-off motifs on the inside of the doors as well as open recesses on the door lock and on the long edges.

Angelika Lindner