A SOUTH GERMAN IRON-MOUNTED WALNUT, MAPLE AND FRUITWOOD MARQUETRY TABLE CABINET

This cabinet belongs to a group of South German furniture mainly from Swabia, Bavaria and Tyrol inlaid with stylised ruins and elaborate scrollwork defining space and perspective. Such scenes of spectacular ruins were popularised by the Augsburg engravings, entitled Geometria et Perspectiva, published in 1567 by Lorenz Stöer (d. 1620). The most celebrated example of this Ruinenarchitektur marquetry is probably the Wrangelschrank in the Landesmuseum in Münster, which was presented by the Swedish general Carl Gustav Wrangel in 1566 to his daughter Hedwig Eleonore upon her marriage to Ernst Ludwig II of Putbus (see L. Möller, Der Wrangelschrank und die verwandten süddeutschen Intarsienmöbel des 16. Jahrhunderts, Berlin, 1956, pp. 5-14).