Small Kunstkammer cabinet, South German, ca 1630

20 juillet 2024

Small Kunstkammer cabinet, South German, ca 1630

Small Kunstkammer cabinet, South German, ca 1630. Carcase: conifer; drawers: oak, lined with green paper; veneer: pearwood, ebonised; mounts and fittings: brass. Height 60 cm, width 35 cm, depth 21 cm. POR. © Kuntskammer Georg Laue

The small Kunstkammer cabinet is distinguished by elegant pyramidal form and the sculptural decoration adorning doors, drawer fronts and tympanum. When the cabinet is closed, fantastic grotesques and lion masks with gaping maws stand out in high relief, framed by ripple moulding surrounded by scrolls. Inside the cabinet the drawer façade is decorated with grotesque ring pulls and swags, whereas the panel drawers boast shell-like decoration with organic-looking attenuated festoons. This unusual decoration is characteristic of what is known as the ‘auricular style’, which looks cartilaginous like a human ear. Invented by copperplate engravers and goldsmiths in the early seventeenth century, it was particularly popular by the second third of the century.
Very few cabinets bear this distinctive decoration in the auricular style. Most of the cabinets decorated in this style are Augsburg cabinets made on commission between 1620 and 1630 for the Augsburg merchant and diplomat Philipp Hainhofer to meet the demands of a discerning clientele. The secret compartments hidden at its heart are another remarkable feature of the small Kunstkammer cabinet discussed here. Removing the central drawer in the middle of the drawer façade reveals a secret compartment on the back. The case holding the drawers can also be removed: three small drawers are built in behind it.
The secret drawers, the unusually small format of the cabinet and the elaborate decoration in the auricular style are clear indications that this graceful piece of furniture was made as a collector’s item and container for collections to be placed in a Kunst- and Wunderkammer. Although it is more modest in respect of material and size than Hainhofer’s large cabinets, it is nonetheless, aesthetically speaking, a prime example of the south German cabinetmaker’s craft.