A fine German brass-mounted tulipwood, stained sycamore and floral marquetry casket by David Roentgen, Neuwied circa 1775-80

the rectangular top with  brass-banded concave-sides inlaid with flowers, opening to reveal a recess flanked by two removeable compartments with tambour slides above two secret drawers, the frieze inlaid with roses and flowers with similarly inlaid sides with a gilt-bronze handle, the apron inlaid with a rectangle flanked by two smaller ones all with concave sides concealing a drawer, the underside of one drawer with the inscription in pencil 'droit'

Comparative Literature:
Josef Maria Greber, Abraham und David Roentgen, Vol. II, Starnberg, 1980, plates 303  and 304. 
Hans Huth Roentgen Furniture, London, 1974, plate 194. 

This rare casket is certainly by the maker David Roentgen in view of its similarities to other caskets either signed by or attributed to him. There are very few recorded caskets by him and the majority of those are later than the offered one and veneered in plain mahogany with gilt-bronze mounts and very neo-classical in form. Those in this rose marquetry are extremely rare. For a very similar casket  which when open reveals the same tambour slides enclosing compartments with the same concave-sided top and filets in brass at the angles, see a casket in the Kreismuseum, Neuwied, Germany, illustrated by Greber, op. cit., plates 303 and 304.

A comparative casket signed in ink on the bottom `D. Roentgen à Neuwied', is illustrated by Huth, op. cit., no. 194 (Rheinisches Landmuseum, Bonn), reproduced here in fig. 2.  It is in the same form as the offered casket with the rose marquetry and a narrow drawer in the frieze. Huth, op. cit., also illustrates various caskets in fig. 195 and 196, in the Louvre in Paris and the Hermitage, St. Petersburg which are in plain mahogany and later in date than the present casket.

The Design of the Marquetry:
This characteristic `rose-marquetry motif' was used by the Roentgen workshop with different variations and has been used to great effect by the elegant suspension of flowers by ribbons. One of the earliest examples (circa 1773) is the so-called `Rosenbureau' in the Residenzmuseum in Munich (see the illustration in Hans Huth op. cit., p. 1928, plate 11 and 79). Although it is known that several marqueteurs worked in the Neuwied workshop and that Zick provided Roentgen with designs for figurative marquetry, the designer of this `flower-and -ribbon' marquetry introduced in the 1770's remains unknown to date.

For further information on David Roentgen, see footnote to lot 173.