This wonderful vitrine is of a type traditionally known as a cabinet of curiosities, or a ‘kunstkammer’ in German, within which one might display the prize pickings of his collection of artworks, artefacts, and other oddities and novelties. This cabinet is crafted from ebonised wood fitted with K.P.M. painted porcelain plaques and ormolu (gilt bronze) mounts.
The cabinet is bounded above and below with a frieze of four green and white ground porcelain plaques, each of the eight plaques depicting a painted scene of courting couples. Between the friezes, a bead moulded glazed door opens to two glass shelves, the cabinet sided with glass panes and the back set with a mirror. This door is flanked by a pair of baluster form porcelain columns, the porcelain painted in green and pink and with delicate floral motifs. Below the door is a long drawer inset with two porcelain plaques encompassed by ormolu foliate mounts, the plaques painted with similar fête galante scenes to the plaques that constitute the friezes.
The cabinet stands on four multi-part porcelain toupie feet and is surmounted by a flower-encrusted crested crown, the crest intricately modelled with a flower flanked female bust and the centre of the tympanum painted with a scene of a family of three frolicking within a landscape.