GERMAN, LATE 16TH OR EARLY 17TH CENTURY

The present lot is likely to have been intended for use as a church warden’s writing desk. The coat of arms represented above the name of Andreas Winkelman has been published in connection with a ‘Conradus Winkelmann’ whose arms appear on the baptismal font in St. Matthäus church in Padingbüttel, Lower Saxony, perhaps providing a clue as to the present lot’s area of production (see J. Siebmacher, Grosses und allgemeines Wappenbuch, Nuremberg, 1920, p. 41, pl. 52.)
A comparable ‘coffer in the form of a reading desk’, described as Russian and from the 17th century, is housed in the Musée le Secq des Tournelles, Rouen (see H. R. d’Allemagne, Decorative Antique Ironwork, New York, 1968, p. 392).