Further Media
Cartonnier
This cartonnier (filling cabinet) consist of a lower cabinet (bout de bureau) and a cupboard for filing paper (serre-papiers). Its most impressive feature is a free-standing sculpture of Chronos, the ruler of time, who rests his foot on the Pope’s tiara as well as on a crown, showing that clerical and secular power are ephemeral. The marquetry on the lower cabinet is the result of remodeling in the first half of the 19th century.
The cartonnier is first documented in 1768 in the inventory of the Taschenbergpalais, where it was listed in ‘Her Royal Highness the Electress's Library,’ i.e. the library of Electress Maria Antonia Walpurgis of Saxony (1724–1780), together with a bureau plat. Maria Antonia Walpurgis is also identified as the owner by an embossed stamp with her initials ‘MA’ on the back of the cartonnier. From the mid-19th century onwards, the piece of furniture can be traced to the so-called Secundogenitur Palace.
A very similar piece of furniture has been preserved in Sanssouci Palace in Potsdam, which the Prussian King Frederick II had purchased in Paris in 1746.
object information
Jean-Pierre Latz (attributed)
Paris, about 1740
construction: oak
marquetry: amaranth, bloodwood, kingwood, mahogany, walnut
mounts: cast brass, fire-gilded
measures: h: 239,5 x w: 96 x d: 51 cm
Kunstgewerbemuseum, Inv.-Nr. 37655