This cabinet or Kabinettschränkchen is an important discovery since it presents strong parallels with a group of marquetry furniture pieces commonly associated with the city of Würzburg and especially with the gifted cabinetmaker and court carpenter Carl Maximilian Mattern (1705-1774) whose work was very influential in the city and beyond. Not only a significant example of the Baroque style in Germany, this cabinet is also an exciting addition to the repertoire of works originating from Würzburg by Mattern.

Würzburg and Carl Maximilian Mattern

Key characteristics of this cabinet, particularly the surface carefully decorated with minute inlaid designs of stylized foliage on grounds of walnut, fruitwoods or brass, creating colorful effects to both the interior and exterior of the cabinet, are typical of the production from Würzburg. The latter is often tied to the name of the cabinetmaker Carl Maximilian Mattern and in fact several examples of his work enable us to support the origins of the present cabinet (all illustrated in Hans-Peterl Trenschel and Wolf-Christian von der Mülbe, Meisterwerke fränkischer Möbelkunst: Carl Maximilian Mattern, 1982:

-a clock circa 1744 in the Residenz Würzburg (fig.73) combining both brass marquetry with fruitwood marquetry and stylized foliage highly similar to those found on the present
-a cabinet circa 1730 completely inlaid to the front with brass in première and contre partie with gilt-brass with two the sides marquetry displaying arabesques and stylized foliage (fig. 13). Conserved at Schloss Schillingsfürst, this cabinet, though inspired in decoration by French cabinetry and by the designs of Jean Bérain, further suggests the use of brass by Mattern and his overall mastery of the marquetry technique.
-a cabinet circa 1745 in the Schloss Ansbach (fig.113) with a main structure divided by columns and overall blending marquetry against a walnut ground and enclosed in a frame of a darker fruitwood.

Many of the decorative elements mentioned in these three examples are found across the works of Mattern and across others originating from Würzburg (see Hermann Schmitz, Deutsche Möbel des Barock und Rokoko, p.162 and p.237).

Carl Maximilian Mattern (1705-1774)

Carl Maximilian Mattern was born in Nuremberg as the son of the cabinetmaker and sculptor Carl Mattern with whom he completed his apprenticeship. The latter with his father took Carl Maximilian in 1718 to the sumptuous Pommersfelden Castle, one of the centres of marquetry where Heinrich Ludwig Rohde operated but also the celebrated marquetry cabinetmaker Ferdinand Plitzner who had just finished the mirror cabinet at the castle, and then to the Deutschordenskommende ("Commandry of the Teutonic Knights") in Frankfurt-Sachsenhausen. His whereabouts are then unclear but it is certain he came before 1730 to Schillingsfürst, the residence of Prince Philipp Ernst zu Hohenlohe-Waldenburg-Schillingsfürst. Since his niece was expecting a child from him and his marriage, which had been performed according to the Protestant rite, had been declared invalid by Philipp Ernst zu Hohenlohe-Waldenburg-Schillingsfürst, the latter quickly dismissed the cabinetmaker from his service.

Carl Maximilian Mattern thus went to Würzburg and worked at the residence of Prince-Bishop Friedrich Karl von Schönborn, a cousin of Count Philipp Ernst zu Hohenlohe-Waldenburg-Schillingsfürst. In Würzburg, Mattern cleared his name with the guild thanks to the support of the influential court councillor and later court chancellor Franz Ludwig von Fichtel. Fichtel's protection probably led to the cabinetmaker being accepted into the artillery of the prince-bishop of Würzburg, where Mattern had held the rank of artificer-serjeant since 1735. It is also at that t.mes that Mattern completed some of the inlaid interiors at the residence in Würzburg of Fichtel.

Mattern was not only financially secure, but also cleared from the doubts of the guild and its regulations, which gave him the opportunity for extensive private commissions. Carl Maximilian Mattern's artistic breakthrough at the prince-bishop's court came in the 1740s starting when he was commissioned in 1741 to make the case of a floor clock, for which the sculptor Georg Adam Gutmann created the carvings (illustrated in Hans-Peterl Trenschel and Wolf-Christian von der Mülbe, op. cit., fig. 33). With this work, Mattern was able to demonstrate his excellent qualities as a cabinetmaker to the prince-bishop and he distinguished himself as the leading cabinetmaker of Würzburg and Franconia.

Mattern over t.mes accumulated debts and his critical financial circumstances gradually led him to the sidelines in the 1750s: indeed, Mattern found himself advancing too much funds for furniture pieces for the Prince, and since the Prince had not specifically commissioned these pieces, he did not want to pay for them.

Deciphering the portrait inlaid on the cabinet’s superstructure could well reveal more information on the history of this cabinet.

Lady Howard de Walden

The label on the back of this cabinet probably refers to Margherita Dorothy Scott-Ellis (born van Raalte, 1890- 1974), Lady Howard de Walden, who was a philanthropist, Justice of the Peace and a collects or of antiques.

She was married to Thomas Scott-Ellis, 8th Baron Howard de Walden, and together with their children they lived at Chirk Castle in Denbighshire from 1912, the year they married. They hosted lavish parties and both were passionate antiquarian. Her husband was especially interested in Wales, all things medieval and a collects or of modern art.

During the First World War, Margherita took on a Matron and eleven private nurses and established in 1915 a convalescent hospital in Alexandria Egypt where her husband was second-in-Command of the Westminster Dragoons, and was posted. Margherita’s efforts did not go unnoticed and she was named Commander, Order of the British Empire (C.B.E.) as well as Dame of Grace, Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem.