A LARGE SOUTH GERMAN BRASS-MOUNTED PIETRA DURA, EBONY AND EBONISED CABINET

This superb cabinet with its striking pietra dura panels, architectural form and playful mounts, provides an insight into the exchange of artistic ideas and materials between Italy and Central Europe in the late 17th century and the production of decorative arts in the economic and cultural hub of Augsburg. The composition of the current cabinet and its architectural decoration as well as the naturalistic subject of the pietra dura plaques is related to cabinets produced in the Augsburg workshops throughout the 17th century and the lack of doors on this cabinet indicate that it was made from the 1660s.
The 15 pietra dura plaques of the present lot were most probably produced in the Grand Ducal workshops in Florence and their subjects of flowers and parrots perching in trees relate to the botanical and zoological drawings executed by Iacopo Ligozzi (1547-1626), who supplied numerous patterns to the craftsmen at the Grand Ducal workshops (A. Giusti, Il Museo dell'Opificio delle Pietre Dure a Firenze Capolavori, Livorno, 1999, p. 30). This naturalistic subject was favoured by the Augsburg artisans and is reflected in the floral mounts and lion masks of the present lot. Skilfully cut, the plaques are made from a variety of semi-precious stones and marbles including lapis lazuli, agate, alberese and breche. The unusual pale ground of these plaques, more common in the 18th century, is testament to the individuality of this cabinet and its production. Similar plaques on pale ground can be seen on the ‘German Cabinet’ created in Augsburg between 1619 and 1626 and currently in the Museo degli Argenti, Florence (illustrated Annamaria Giusti, Pietre Dure and the Art of Florentine Inlay, London, 2006, p. 135).
Though the art of pietra dura work originated and flourished in Florence, it found favour across the continent, particularly in the lands of the Holy Roman Empire. Augsburg became an important centre of luxury production, famous in particular for cabinets finished in ebony and ivory and its reputation as a creative centre was maintained up until the end of the 17th century despite the destruction of the Thirty Years War. Though reduced by about half its number compared to thirty years previously, in the 1660s the Augsburg Cabinetmakers’ Guild still recorded over 70 masters. Much like the marchands-merciers who would so define artistic production in Paris more than a century later, the early Augsburg workshops had as their promoter and patron Philipp Hainhofer (1578 – 1647), an art dealer and diplomat who obtained materials, commissioned and designed objects, employed artists and procured buyers. Cabinets such as the present lot were made to amuse and intrigue and were in Hainhofer’s own words ‘full of secrets and uses’ (Heikamp 1966), a trait reflected in the hidden drawers concealed in the sides of this cabinet. The lining of the drawers of this cabinet in exotic and expensive amaranth is another characteristic of furniture produced in Augsburg.
An Augsburg cabinet of the early 17th century delivered by Philipp Hainhofer and similar in composition and in elements of decoration to the present lot can be found in Schloss Rosenborg, Copenhagen (described and illustrated H. Kreisel, Die Kunst des deutschen Moebels, Munich, 1970, p.174, fig. 365). A further related cabinet was sold at Christie’s New York, April 28, 2017, lot 11. Schloss Köpenick in Berlin contains a cabinet with the Augsburg hallmark of comparative size and this cabinet also features keyholes crafted horizontally, a characteristic seen predominantly in German-made pieces. A cabinet by Elias Boscher of Augsburg with the same horizontal keyholes and hidden side-drawers sold at Bonham’s London, 5 December 2014, lot 20 (illustrated Christine Cornet, Die Augsburger Kistler des 17. Jahrhunderts, Petersberg, 2016, pl. 70-76).
The present cabinet was most probably formerly in the collection of George Lee, 3rd Earl of Lichfield. The inventory of the contents of Ditchley Park drawn up at the 3rd Earl’s death in 1772 lists a ‘fine large Cabinet with a curious inlaid Marble front’ in ‘Lord Lichfield’s Chamber’. Ditchley Park has a remarkable history in both the 18th and 20th Centuries. The house was largely built by George Lee, 2nd Earl of Lichfield, whose mother, Lady Charlotte Fitzroy was the daughter of Charles II by the Duchess of Cleveland. John Cornforth suggests that James Gibbs supplied the plans and elevations for the house and Henry Flitcroft carried out the interiors. Work began in 1720 and continued until the 2nd Earl's death in 1743 at the age of 52. The 3rd Earl died in 1772 and Lady Charlotte Lee, who married the 11th Viscount Dillon, inherited the house in 1776.
The cabinet was later recorded in the collection of Harold Arthur Lee-Dillon, 17th Viscount Dillon and has remained in the family until the present day. Harold Arthur Lee-Dillon, 17th Viscount Dillon (1844-1932) was a major figure in the British academic art world in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and a leading antiquarian and historian in arms and armour. After an education at the University of Bonn and a period of service in the army, Dillon was appointed as the first curator of the armouries of the Tower of London. The number and importance of his appointments make clear that Dillon was a towering and well-respected figure in the British arts scene. He was chairman of the trustees of the National Portrait Gallery, President of the Royal Archaeological Institute, President of the Society of Antiquaries, a trustee of the British Museum, trustee of the Wallace Collection and antiquary to the Royal Academy. He bequeathed a number of portraits from his ancestral home, Ditchley Park to the National Portrait Gallery including the famous ‘Ditchley Portrait’ of Elizabeth I. After his death at Ditchley in 1932 the estate was sold, with some of the collection auctioned at Sotheby’s 26 May 1933.