Cabinet

This cabinet, a so-called “Kunstschrank,” is one of the pinnacle achievements of German cabinetmaking. A complicated interior mechanism releases the extension of, amongst other things, a lectern and a coin-box. The latter is connected to a fluteplaying music box, which, like a safety mechanism, starts playing when the coin-box is opened. It was made for the Austrian governor in the Netherlands, Prince Karl Alexander of Lorraine. Roentgen delivered it in the August of 1776 for the writing room of the royal palace in Brussels. Archduke Karl, as the last governor of the Netherlands, moved the cabinet to Vienna most probably in 1794 and donated it to the Vienna Polytechnic in 1823, along with the other works by Roentgen to be seen here.