Lot 29 Dα

Miniature furniture has been known since the 15th century. The joy of miniatures as well as the respect for the large can also be applied to the cultural history of European furniture. Smaller versions of all types of utility furniture have always been created, as play furniture for children and adults or as model furniture to demonstrate the possibilities of a piece.

Portable cabinets like these with either a drop flap or two doors were never created exclusively as functional furniture pieces. Whether studded with silver appliques like the legendary lost Pomeranian artisan cabinet of the Augsburg art dealer Philipp Hainhofer (1578 - 1647) or the Wrangel cabinet in the Westphalian State Museum in Münster, fantastically inlaid in various coloured woods, or with hardstone inlays by the Florentine Opificio delle Pietre Dure - the visible fronts of such cabinets have always lent themselves to ornamentation. In this case, the miniaturist has immortalised the buyer in the midst of his domestic menagerie in an extraordinary piece of ornamental furniture, perhaps created for a small cabinet of curiosities, as we know was the case for two other similar published examples.