Lot 353 Dα

Important Cultural Good



The impressive detailed pictorial programme of this piece derives from the work of the Antwerp engraver Jan Collaert the Younger (1561/66 - 1620/28), who published the story of Susanna after Marten de Vos (c. 1531 - 1603) in 1552. The scenes depicted are Susanna in her bath (top left), Susanna before the judge (top right), Daniel's intervention (bottom left) and the stoning of the elders (bottom right).


Britta Hoppe provided the first compilation of all known Cologne cabinets of this type in 1999. She was able to find a total of 15 examples of the form presented here with slanted corners and upper cabinet of triangular section, including only one, namely this one, decorated with the story of Susanna. Five other identical cabinets show the four evangelists, three the story of David, and two seasonal sequences. The relationship between this piece and the two cabinets in the Cologne museums (the Evangelist cabinet in the Museum of Applied Art in Cologne and the David cabinet in the Cologne City Museum), with which it can be compared, is evident. All three pieces of furniture have the same elevation and proportions, the same carving on the drawer fronts and the pilasters below, as well as identical caryatids under the cornice. All this speaks for an origin in the same workshop.


Petra Werhahn-Fleischhauer assumes that after 1610 the transition from inlaid to carved cabinets took place in the workshop of Melchior von Rheidt and his successor Hans von Rheidt. The Cologne City Museum also houses an inlaid Susanna cabinet from Melchior von Rheidt's workshop, dated 1601 - 1605. It is interesting to note that the same inlaid iconographic scheme was re-executed in relief a generation later using different models. A drastic change in tastes was taking place during this period, as demonstrated by the piece shown here.