Toys for a queen's inner child

Father

Furniture can be sexy. Who would have thought. Also it can be gorgeous, exquistely made, magical and hardest for some to believe, a work of art..  Exhibitions of furniture are usually worthy, which is to say instructive and dull. This one is anything but.  “Extravagant Inventions: The PrincelyFurniture of the Roentgens,” now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art is an unexpected treat. The woods –sycamore, rosewood, apple among them are warm and beautiful. The inlaid marquetry is as good as it gets with perfectly inset flowers, cherubs, comedia dell’arte figures, historical scenes and plenty else besides--let's not forget cows. But best of all are the secrets. Marie Antoinette and Catherine the Great were patrons of the Roentgens. These desks and chests, chairs, cabinets and caskets all practical objects, are also princely toys. Turn a gilded key in a door of a cabinet and it springs opens to reveal boxes that open out to reveal many hidden drawers;  the sides of a desk  springs open to reveal slanting stands on which to rest heavy books like illuminated manuscripts and on it goes with parts of the furniture sliding, jumping out, turning and springing..

Son

Before

  The sixty pieces on view all made by in the eighteenth century by Abraham and his son David Roentgen and their team at their workshop in Neuwied, German  This is the largest show of Roentgen furniture ever staged in the United States. Unprecedented loans have come from private and public collections at home and abroad including six pieces never before loaned by Berlin’s Kuntsgewerbe Museum. Here, the use of videos doesn’t seem merely an attempt to appear to be up to date technologically. It helps. As soon as I figure out how to add the vidoes to this post I will. For now go to the Met's website. They show  several pieces being opened.. Alongside the Roentgens’ sizeable “Automaton of Marie Antoinette” of a large, doll-sized queen sitting at her dulcimer, is a video of what happens when the piece is wound up. The full skirt of her gown hides the mechanism that directs beauty to turn her bewigged head as if bemused by the music she makes as she strikes the keyboard . The lovely sounds fill the galleries providing just a touch of eighteenth century atmosphere—a touch is quite enough. Often at exhibitions I feel that paintings mean most when hung at home on the wall and that there is always a loss when seeing them in public exhibitions. But here, displayed in the museum the power as well as the spectacular attractiveness and craftsmanship of Roentgen pieces shines out more than one any single one I've seen does when on show in a museum period room.

after

  Not surprisingly for a writer, my favorite is a writing desk designed by Abraham Roentgen. In fact, this loan from the Rijksmuseum, is encrusted with such fanciful, luscious inlay it probably made anything its owner wrote seem feeble in comparison. A dozen woods from walnut to olive were used, some of them stained. Tortoiseshell, mother-of-pearl, ivory, gilded bronze, brass, copper and silver were used for the inlays There are coats of arms of the von Wallendorfs who commissioned the piece. There are also putti and flowers, Charity and Justice makes appearances as do evocations of black and white tiled rooms and-- at the side-- pastoral scenes with flute playing farmer and munching cows.. Just about every part of this desk springs open to reveal more drawers and niches; the base becomes a knee- rest for praying and the top turns into a small altar.(The von Wallendorfs were Catholic.)

   The exhibition which took three years to organize, is the outgrowth of the passion for the Roentgens which Met curator Wolfram Koeppe has had since his student days. I wrote a profile of Koeppe for 25 years of TEFAF published last March. He has learned huge amounts since his student days but has never lost his love for European works of art. Lucky us.