Christiane Ernek-van der Goes, art historian and research associate at the Dresden State Art Collections, has been dedicating a research project to the Dresden Latz furniture since 2011. When the parade rooms in the Dresden Residenzschloss are reopened in 2020, there will also be several large grandfather clocks, known as pendulums, in the halls. As before the palace was destroyed in the Second World War, they will be part of the […]
Christiane Ernek-van der Goes, art historian and research associate at the Dresden State Art Collections, has been dedicating a research project to the Dresden Latz furniture since 2011
When the parade rooms in the Dresden Residenzschloss are reopened in 2020, there will also be several large grandfather clocks, known as pendulums, in the halls. As was the case before the palace was destroyed in the Second World War, they will be perceived as part of the furnishings. They were always intended as decorative pieces and were created as such in the workshop of Jean-Pierre Latz, whose real name was Johann Peter Latz, who was born around 1691 in the Electorate of Cologne, went to Paris, ran a large ebenist workshop there and died in 1754. From today’s perspective, however, Latz’s furniture is not only evidence of the highest craftsmanship for the fulfillment of sumptuous representational needs, but also little-used objects of research. Christiane Ernek-van der Goes, art historian and research associate at the Dresden State Art Collections, recognized this and has been dedicating a research project to the Dresden Latz furniture since 2011. (see RESTAURO 8/2014). In 2017, the latest research results were presented to national and international experts on Boulle marquetry at a workshop. In Dresden, Christiane Ernek-van der Goes works with the head conservator of the Kunstgewerbemuseum Clara von Engelhardt, the physicist Michael Mäder and freelance conservators, for example “to find evidence for the attribution of the Dresden pieces to Latz with an analytical eye”, as she says. Although the Dresden team discovered a note with Latz’s signature inside a grandfather clock, most of the works are unsigned and are therefore considered to be his works for stylistic reasons alone.
The Dresden State Art Collections provide the best conditions for such a research project, as the museums own 30 individual objects from the Latz workshop. Christiane Ernek-van Goes was able to prove that thirteen pendulums alone from the property of Count von Brühl were acquired by the Saxon electors in 1768. How Brühl acquired his French furniture, whether he ordered it directly from Latz or selected it from an existing range, is now the subject of current research. “The art and cultural-historical significance of this clock collection lies not only in the large number of very high-quality French pendulums, but also in the unique collection of clock pairs,” Christiane Ernek-van der Goes noted back in 2011. The pairing of visually similar clocks appears to be a special feature that was cultivated at and around the Saxon court.
Even the contemporary description, which was written on the occasion of the purchase from the Brühl estate by the Electoral Guard House Administration, expresses admiration for the splendor and craftsmanship, despite its businesslike and bureaucratic brevity and the spelling and punctuation typical of the time.
The carillon clock, for example, is described as follows: “A French pendulum, with a carillon, the case inlaid with tortoise and brass, the same inlaid with bronze and gilded figures, on a base of black stippled wood with measured moldings.” The value of the pendulums and furniture from Brühl’s estate for the Saxon royal family is also demonstrated by the fact that some of them were installed in the palace’s state rooms immediately after their purchase and complemented the bib furniture purchased by the royal family itself. They remained together until the abdication of the aristocratic house in 1925. During the division between the art collections and the Wettins, some pieces went to the Wettins. They are now in private collections. The remaining Dresden pieces never left the city or the collection. This is also part of their uniqueness. Even the Soviet trophy brigades did not take the Latz furniture with them after 1945. “Comparable objects in many large museums, such as the Louvre, the Getty Museum or the Cleveland Museum of Art, have often been on the art market before, many of which have been heavily reworked, and in some cases veneers have been completely reissued,” says Clara von Engelhardt. The Dresden furniture, on the other hand, has largely been preserved in its original condition, and some has even remained completely unrestored. This is to remain the case so that the originals can be passed on to posterity unchanged. “We will only preserve some pieces and keep them as contemporary documents,” explains lead restorer Clara von Engelhardt, in whose workshop the Latz furniture is currently being dismantled into many individual parts.
Christiane Ernek-van der Goes has gradually been able to convince various partners of the merits of her research project. In the beginning, the art historian was inspired by the Friends of the Museum of Decorative Arts, who pushed her research project. The Volkswagen Foundation, the Ernst von Siemens Art Foundation and the Rudolf-August Oetker Foundation were also won over as sponsors
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