Lot 37: A SOUTH GERMAN RENAISSANCE SYCAMORE, FRUITWOOD, PARQUETRY AND MARQUETRY TRAVELLING CABINET CIRCA 1560, AUGSBURG With rectangular top

centrally inlaid with a scrolling foliate oval medallion enclosing a reclining putto within a provincial townscape surrounded by elaborate blossoming scrolling foliage, the corners fitted with gilt-metal clasps above a similarly inlaid fall front reversing to a medallion enclosing a stag hunt, the interior fitted with a central cupboard door inlaid with a musician surrounded by eight short drawers and a long drawer panelled to simulate two short drawers, the sides fitted with carrying handles, and the back similarly inlaid --15 1/2 in. (38.7 cm.) high, 21 1/2 in. (53.7 cm.) wide, 16 in. (40 cm.) deep PROVENANCE Katherine Schratt EXHIBITED California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, The Triumph of Humanism, September 1977-January 1978, no. 221 LITERATURE A. Sassoon and G. Wilson, Handbook, 1986, p. 113, no. 27 L. Muller, Der Wrangel-Schrank und die Verwandten suddeutschen Intarsienmobel des 16. Jahrhunderts, 1956, no. 74, pls. 185, 186 The travelling cabinet offered in this lot belongs to an extensive group of South German furniture mainly from Swabia, Bavaria and Tirol inlaid with stylized ruins and characteristically elaborate scrollwork defining space and perspective. A table cabinet with perhaps the most exemplary and fantastic marquetry related to the offered lot is the Wrangel-Schrank, now in the Westfalisches Landesmuseum fur Kunst and Kulturgeschichte, Munster, which was presented by the Swedish general Carl Gustav Wrangel in 1566 to his daughter Hedwig Eleonore Sophie upon her marriage to Ernst Ludwig II of Putbus. (See H. Eickel, Der Wrangelschrank im Landesmuseum fur Kunst und Kulturgeschichte in Munster, n.d., pp. 139-145 and L. Moller, Der Wrangel-Schrank, 1984, pp. 5-14). This distinctive "Ruinenarchitektur" marquetry is believed to be based on etchings executed by Leonard Thiry and Ducerceau in 1550 as well as on the Geometria und Perspektiva etlicher zerbrochener Gebew, a design book of drawings published in 1567 by Augsburg cabinetmaker Lorenz Stoer (see H. Kreisel, Die Kunst des deutschen Mobels, 1986, vol. I, pp. 85-87). Several Kabinettschranke with related marquetry are illustrated in H. Kreisel op. cit., figs. 214-216.