Commode
David Roentgen, Januarius Zick
Neuwied, ca 1780
Oak, spruce with walnut, mahogany, box-wood, sycamore
88,0 x 135,6 x 67,0 cm
Inv.-Nr. 90/307
Acquired in 1990 with the Fritz Thyssen Collection, Anita Countess Zichy-Thyssen Bequest
David Roentgen was probably the most celebrated cabinet-maker of his age. His father, Abraham Roentgen, had built up an important furniture workshop at Neuwied on the Rhine producing high-quality furniture incorporating stylistic elements from England. David delivered to all European courts, from St Petersburg to Berlin and Paris. In the latter Louis XVI granted him permission to found a secondary workshop in 1780. His neo-classical furniture was highly prized for its built-in mechanisms and intricately wrought marquetry scenes. Most of these were modelled on works by the painter Januarius Zick. Translation into marquetry cost them none of their subtlety of colour since they were not merely painted on to the surface but actually composed of tiny stained pieces of wood like mosaics. The marquetry representations on the front of the commode are ingeniously arranged Commedia dell'arte scenes, with a stage scene in the centre watched by an audience seated in boxes at either side. This piece, with a companion-piece in the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, and a third, similar piece in the Metropolitan Museum in New York, was probably acquired by Carl-August, Duke of Saxony-Weimar (1757–1828).
des Bayerischen Nationalmuseum
des Bayerischen Nationalmuseum
