German Japanned Cabinet
Rare German Bureau Cabinet, japanned on a white ground. Circa 1725.
Height 77" (1,96m).
Width 42" (1,07m).
Depth 24" (61cm).
Provenance :- Baron Rudolph d’Erlanger (1872-1932), Avenue Kléber, Paris; thereafter by descent. Originally, probably in the collection of Clemens August of Bavaria (1700-1761), Archbishop-Elector of Köln, Schloss Augustusburg, Brühl.
It is very possible that this cabinet was made for the Indianische Lackkabinett (also known as the Blue and White Room) at Schloss Brühl, near Cologne. Schloss Brühl was the residence of the Archbishop-Elector of Cologne, and the Blue and White Room had panelling which appears to be very much of the character of this present cabinet. Unfortunately, only fragments of this panelling survive, as the room was severely damaged during the Second World War, but those that remain are of a markedly similar palate and spirit.(1) Furthermore, the presence of the Electoral crown on the mounts of this cabinet means that it must have belonged to one of the Electors of the Holy Roman Empire. For example, the Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Cologne has a Meissen coffee service with chinoiserie decoration, made for Clemens August, which includes his arms, surmounted by the Electoral crown,(2) and a very grand Antwerp tortoiseshell and boulle writing cabinet, of c. 1700, now in the Residenz, Munich, has the monogram ‘ME’ for Max Emanuel of Bavaria, father of Clemens August, with the Electoral crown above the monogram and also on the key escutcheons.(3) Another japanned bureau cabinet, by Martin Schnell, Dresden, 1726-30, also with key escutcheons incorporating the Electoral crown, is at Schloss Pillnitz, one of the residences of the Electors of Saxony.(4)
The cabinet was subsequently owned by Baron Rudolph d’Erlanger (1872-1932), an artist and musicologist who built the beautiful palace, Nejma Ezzahra, in Sidi-bou-Said, Tunisia, between 1909 and 1921. Baron d’Erlanger came from the German Von Erlanger banking family, which had branches in Paris and London. His father was Baron Frédéric Émile d’Erlanger who is best known for financing the railroad from New Orleans to Meridian, Mississippi, which later continued to Cincinnati and New York, and his mother was Marguerite Mathilde Slidell, whose uncle was Commodore Matthew Perry, who opened up Japan to U.S. trade in 1853. Frédéric Émile’s father, Baron Émile d’Erlanger, is renowned for the ‘Erlanger Loan’ of 1863, when he lent the Confederacy $15,000,000 by underwriting bonds secured by cotton.
Two related cabinets, japanned on a white or cream ground, were both with the firm of R. A. Lee in London some years ago. One was a secretaire cabinet with shaped domed top and most distinctive interior arrangement of drawers and pigeonholes,(5) the other a medal cabinet-on-stand previously in the collection of Paul Getty.(6) A German double-domed green-japanned cabinet, c. 1730, with similar unusual reserves to the decorated panels as the present cabinet, is in the collection of the Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo.(7)
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Footnotes
1. For an account of this room, see Kurt Röder & Walter Holzhausen, Das indianische Lackkabinet des Kurfürsten Clemens August in Schloss Brühl, 1950. See also Hans Huth, Lacquer of the West, 1971, pp. 82-83 and fig. 219.
2. See Brigitte Klesse, Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Köln, 1989, p. 72.
3. Brigitte Langer, Alexander von Württemberg, et al., Die Möbel der Residenz München, Vol. II, 1996, no. 11, p. 99.
4. Heinrich Kreisel, Die Kunst des deutschen Möbels, 1970, Vol. II, fig. 44.
5. Christies London, English Furniture, 25th June 1987, lot 152 (£264,000).
6. Christie’s New York, English Furniture, 22nd October, 1988, lot 176 ($52,800). See also Hans Huth, op. cit., plate IV.
7. Inv. No. OK 6561. The cabinet was acquired by the museum in 1901. Illustrated in Hans Huth, op. cit., figs. 152 & 153.
