# Cabinet > Andre-Charles Boulle - c. 1690 > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/artworks/andre-charles-boulle/boulle-cabinet-cleveland/ > Published by Servola Systems GmbH. Last verified: 2026-08-18 ## Tombstone - **Artist:** Andre-Charles Boulle - **Date:** c. 1690 - **Medium:** Ebony veneer over a carcase (wood species not published by the museum), with marquetry in brass and tortoiseshell (boulle marquetry) on the frame and wood marquetry on a tortoiseshell ground on the central and side panels, and gilt-bronze (ormolu) mounts - **Dimensions:** 101.3 x 117.6 x 50 cm (39 7/8 x 46 5/16 x 19 11/16 in) - **Object type:** Furniture - **Period:** French, Louis XIV, late seventeenth century - **Current location:** Cleveland Museum of Art, Gallery 215 (French, German, and Dutch), Samuel Rosenthal Family Gallery - **Attribution:** accepted ## Summary An ebony cabinet inlaid with brass and tortoiseshell in the technique that carries Andre-Charles Boulle's name, its front panel centred on a gilt-bronze medallion of Louis XIV beneath a trophy of arms, and its central and side panels filled with parakeets and butterflies cut in wood marquetry against a tortoiseshell ground. Cleveland dates it about 1690 and attributes it to Boulle outright; the museum's own 1951 acquisition report was more careful, calling the attribution probable but not certain, built from comparison with a pendant piece at Versailles, a related armoire in the Louvre, a documented coin cabinet made for a Bavarian prince, and a cabinet at Drumlanrig traditionally linked to a gift from Charles II of England.The cabinet came to Cleveland in 1949 from the New York dealers Rosenberg and Stiebel, out of the Vienna collections of Baron Nathaniel de Rothschild and then Baron Alphonse de Rothschild. That single Vienna name sits over one of the twentieth century's most documented confiscations of a private collection - the Gestapo's seizure of the Alphonse von Rothschild household on the day after the Anschluss in March 1938 - without Cleveland's own record saying whether the cabinet left the family before that date or was restituted afterward. The museum's Nazi-era provenance research project, by its own description, currently covers only its European paintings and sculpture; this piece, and the rest of its decorative arts collection, has not been run through that process.What is not in dispute is the object itself: an early, largely unaltered example of the cabinet-on-a-stand form Boulle helped establish at the height of his royal patronage, missing only the tall base it was built to sit on, removed at some point in the late eighteenth century to suit a lower, more fashionable silhouette. ## Provenance Every link carries a grade. `documented` means a cited source supports it, `disputed` means the identification is argued but not established, `unknown` means we have no owner for that span and have not bridged it. - **c. 1685-1695** Workshop of Andre-Charles Boulle, Paris `[documented]` (creation) Cleveland dates the cabinet c. 1690 (working range 1685-1695) and attributes it to Boulle without qualification. The museum's own 1951 scholarly account of the same piece, by then-director William M. Milliken, reached the same conclusion by comparison with related documented and traditionally-dated pieces, but stated the attribution as probable rather than certain, since no work by Boulle is signed and no document names this specific object. - **c. 1695-unknown** Unrecorded `[unknown]` (gap) No owner, sale, location or document is published for this cabinet between its creation and its first recorded owner, Baron Nathaniel de Rothschild. Cleveland's own provenance record and Milliken's 1951 account, the fullest published study, both begin with the Rothschild ownership, undated. - **unknown** Baron Nathaniel de Rothschild `[documented]` (ownership) The earliest named owner in Cleveland's own provenance record, with no acquisition date, dealer, or circumstance given. If this is Nathaniel Mayer von Rothschild (1836-1905) of the Vienna banking family, whose Palais Rothschild housed a celebrated decorative arts collection, that identification fits the Vienna-centred chain that follows, but it is not confirmed in the sources consulted. - **unknown-by 1949** Baron Alphonse de Rothschild, Vienna `[documented]` (ownership) The second and last named owner before Cleveland, per the museum's own provenance record, again undated. Baron Alphonse Mayer von Rothschild's Vienna palace was sealed and his collection of close to 3,500 objects confiscated by the Gestapo on 14 March 1938, immediately after the Anschluss, with furnishings assigned largely to the Neue Burg and the Palais Pallavicini; his widow Clarice recovered much of the collection and property after the war, in exchange for a forced surrender of over two hundred objects to Austrian museums. Whether this cabinet left the collection before the 1938 confiscation through an ordinary sale, or was confiscated and later restituted before reaching the New York market, is not documented in the sources consulted. Cleveland's own open-access database flags this specific object's Nazi-era-provenance status as false, but the museum's own published Nazi-era provenance research is stated to cover only its European paintings and sculpture collections, not decorative arts. - **by 1949-1949** Rosenberg and Stiebel, Inc., New York (dealer) `[documented]` (sale) Named in Cleveland's own provenance record as the dealer through which the museum acquired the piece from the Alphonse de Rothschild, Vienna ownership. Rosenberg and Stiebel traced its roots to a Frankfurt firm founded in 1874; its principals dispersed to Amsterdam, London and New York during the 1930s to escape Nazi Germany, with the New York branch opening in 1939. No sale date, price, or the specific route by which the piece reached the gallery is published in the sources consulted. - **1949-present** Cleveland Museum of Art `[documented]` (acquisition) Purchased through the John L. Severance Fund and accessioned 23 December 1949, per the museum's own accession-date field. Announced publicly the following month by director William M. Milliken in the museum's own Bulletin. No purchase price has been located in the sources consulted. ## Open questions - Where and with whom was the cabinet between its creation, c. 1685-1695, and its first documented owner, Baron Nathaniel de Rothschild? No date is published for when it entered the Rothschild collection. - Exactly which Nathaniel de Rothschild and which Alphonse de Rothschild are named in Cleveland's provenance record, and by what mechanism, inheritance or purchase, did the piece pass between them? The museum's record gives titles only, no first names, dates or transfer method. - Did the cabinet leave Baron Alphonse von Rothschild's Vienna collection before the Gestapo's confiscation of the household on 14 March 1938, or was it among the confiscated objects and later restituted? Cleveland's own Nazi-era provenance research, by the museum's own description, currently covers only its European paintings and sculpture collections, not its decorative arts, so this has not been formally investigated. - Is the cabinet Milliken identified as the Cleveland piece's pendant still at Versailles today, and does modern scholarship, including Ronfort's 2003 revised chronology, still treat it as a genuine pair, a later associated piece, or something else? - Was the cabinet, or its identified Versailles pendant, ever actually part of the furniture of the Chateau de Versailles dispersed at the Revolutionary sales of the 1790s, as Milliken proposed by comparison, or is that connection unsupported by any surviving inventory? - What did the cabinet's original stand look like, when precisely was it removed, and does the stand survive separately, unrecognised, anywhere? - What price did Cleveland pay for the cabinet in 1949? No figure has been located in the museum's published Bulletin announcement or elsewhere in the sources consulted. - Does Jean Nerhee Ronfort's 2003 article, which Cleveland itself cites as reproducing this cabinet, revise Milliken's 1951 dating or attribution reasoning? The article is paywalled on JSTOR and was not accessible for this record. ## Sources - [1] Cleveland Museum of Art, 'Cabinet' (object page, accession 1949.539). - [2] Cleveland Museum of Art, Open Access API record for accession 1949.539 (internal id 127221), including provenance, technique, accession date and the museum's own is_nazi_era_provenance field. - [3] Milliken, William M. 'A Boulle Cabinet.' The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 38, no. 1 (January 1951): 6-10. - [4] Ronfort, Jean Nerhee. 'The Surviving Cabinets on Stands by Andre-Charles Boulle and the New Chronology of the Master's Oeuvre.' Cleveland Studies in the History of Art 8 (2003): 44-67. Cited by the Cleveland Museum of Art as reproducing this cabinet at pp. 52-53, fig. 11. Paywalled on JSTOR; not independently accessible for this record and flagged for follow-up. - [5] Wikipedia, 'Andre-Charles Boulle.' Tertiary source, used for family background, the 1642 birth-date uncertainty, the 1720 fire inventory, and the list of modern Boulle scholars. Flagged for replacement with Samoyault, Pradere, Ronfort, Dell and Hughes primary scholarship. - [6] The Wallace Collection, 'The Cabinetmaker' (Boulle's Furniture, explore in depth). - [7] The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 'Attributed to Andre Charles Boulle - Cabinet' (comparanda for current museum attribution language). - [8] Ernst von Siemens Kunststiftung, 'Munzkabinett von Andre Boulle' (Staatliche Munzsammlung Munchen). - [9] Buccleuch Living Heritage Trust / Drumlanrig Castle, 'The World Class Buccleuch Art Collection' and 'Drumlanrig Castle'. - [10] Cleveland Museum of Art, 'Nazi-Era Provenance' (statement of the scope of the museum's provenance research project). - [11] Kunst, Raub, Ruckgabe (Nazi-era art theft and restitution research project), 'Alphonse von Rothschild: Art, theft and restitution.' - [12] The Frick Collection Archives, 'Rosenberg and Stiebel Archive' (dealer firm history). - [13] Victoria and Albert Museum, 'Tortoiseshell combs from Jamaica' (hawksbill turtle tortoiseshell trade, used for materials-sourcing context). - [14] Wikipedia, 'Nathaniel Mayer von Rothschild.' Tertiary source, used only for basic biographical context on the Vienna Rothschild branch and its collection. --- Images on this record are public domain or CC0 and are hosted by us. No image on this site is generated or simulated. If you quote this record, quote the provenance grades with it.