Secretary Cabinet, "Neuwieder Kabinett"

The ‘Neuwieder Kabinett’ ranks as a tour-de-force of European cabinetry. From 1768 on David Roentgen presided over his father Abraham’s workshop in Neuwied. This large secretary desk was the workshop’s most significant project of the 1770s. Working in the new Neoclassical style, the workshop perfected the art of creating delicate, colourful, mosaic-like images in fine marquetry, while also developing sophisticated technical mechanisms. The touch of a button opens doors and drawers, as well as, surprisingly, entire writing surfaces, and secret cases and compartments, all accompanied by the virtuoso music of flutes and chimes. Three such desks were produced, with slight variations. The most fully developed version entered the collection of the crown prince of Prussia in Berlin in 1779, thus securing for the workshop the important patronage of the later King Frederick William II. Designed for prestigious display, the immensely expensive cabinet embodied an absolutist claim to power, and served as a uniquely artistic technical monument to the prestige of its royal owner.