Estimate

5.000 - 7.500

Session 3

17 December 2025

Hammer Price

Description

Wood overlaid with ebony and ivory marquetry
Rectangular in form, the exterior with a chess/draughts board and, to the reverse, a nine men’s morris board; opening to reveal a diptych backgammon board, centred on two metal hinges
Outer border with cartouches filled with dense foliate scrollwork; the morris board defined by ivory stringing; the chessboard profusely decorated with a contrasting geometric and floral pattern, alternating squares of ivory-on-ebony and ebony-on-ivory design
The backgammon board repeats the foliate scroll decoration, filling the twenty-four triangular points, the central bars and the surrounding cartouches
German work, 17th century, associated with the Augsburg workshops
(minor losses, defects and restorations)

84x55,5x4,5 cm (aberta)
42x55,5x9,5 cm (fechada)

Additional Information

The typology, quality of workmanship and decorative vocabulary place this box within the output of the Augsburg workshops in the mid-seventeenth century. In both the technical execution of the marquetry and its ornamental language, the piece aligns with Augsburg practice and the circle of Ulrich Baumgartner (1580–1652).

Comparables with closely related structures and marquetry (often alternating floral ornament with entomological motifs) are recorded in major museum collections and the specialist literature: the chessboard incorporated in the Pommerscher Kunstschrank (1617) at the Kunstgewerbemuseum, Berlin; the games box in the Philadelphia Museum of Art; the example in the GRASSI Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Leipzig; and a chessboard with similar marquetry (attributed to Nuremberg, first half of the seventeenth century) reproduced in the standard reference by Hans and Siegfried Wichmann.
With the cites certificate no. 18PTLX07845C

Literature:
Wichmann, Hans; Wichmann, Siegfried. Chess: The Story of Chesspieces from Antiquity to Modern Times. New York: Crown Publishers, 1964, pp. 168, 308, ill. 104/105.