# The Berlin Secretary Cabinet > David Roentgen - 1777-1779 > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/artworks/david-roentgen/roentgen-secretary-desk-kunstgewerbemuseum-berlin/ > Published by Servola Systems GmbH. Last verified: 2026-08-21 ## Tombstone - **Artist:** David Roentgen - **Date:** 1777-1779 - **Medium:** Curly and grained maple veneer and mahogany, with marquetry in rosewood, palisander, apple and mulberry woods, on a carcase of oak, pine, cherry and cedar; gilt bronze, enamel, brass and steel mounts and mechanism; eight-day clock movement with moon-phase dial and a ten-bell carillon; gilt-bronze figure of Apollo at the crest - **Dimensions:** 359 x 152 x 88 cm (H x W x D) - **Object type:** Furniture - **Period:** German, Neoclassical, late eighteenth century - **Current location:** Kunstgewerbemuseum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin - **Attribution:** accepted ## Summary A 359-centimetre mechanical cabinet built by David Roentgen's Neuwied workshop between 1777 and 1779 and delivered to the Prussian crown prince, the future Frederick William II, in December 1779 for 12,000 gold taler. Its fall-front writing section, eight-day moon-phase clock and ten-bell carillon are operated by hidden buttons; the marquetry on its centre door was replaced in 1786, when the new king was presented with the balance still owed on the original purchase, with a panel celebrating him as patron of the arts.The object's own institutional record is unbroken from workshop to royal palace, which is why its authorship, unlike much of the wider Roentgen corpus, was never a matter of stylistic guesswork. What is not documented is where the cabinet spent the fifty-five years between 1930, when it is last recorded in the royal chambers of the Berlin Palace, and 1985, when it entered the Kunstgewerbemuseum - a gap that runs straight through the palace's wartime destruction and its demolition by the East German state. Its original, pre-1786 doors are separately recorded as lost since 1945.It survives today as one of the clearest documented instances of Roentgen's court trade across a divided eighteenth-century Europe: real, extensive, commercially calculated access to rival royal households, sustained by unpaid balances and diplomatic favour-trading, and never more than that. ## 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. - **1777-1779** David Roentgen manufactory, Neuwied `[documented]` (manufacture) Built speculatively, without a firm order in hand. The workshop produced three variants of this large cabinet design; this example is described in the sources as the most fully realised of the three. - **1779-12-1786** Crown Prince Frederick William of Prussia (from 1786, King Frederick William II) `[documented]` (delivery and sale) Delivered to the crown prince in Berlin in December 1779 for 12,000 gold taler (reported elsewhere as approximately 21,500 gulden). An initial payment of 6,000 taler was made, with the balance left outstanding for years. - **1786-1793** King Frederick William II of Prussia `[documented]` (modification) On his accession in summer 1786, Roentgen presented the king with an invoice for the outstanding balance, by then 8,100 taler with interest, and replaced the cabinet's centre and lower-right door marquetry with a new panel depicting an apotheosis of the sovereign. - **1793-1877** Prussian royal house `[documented]` (recorded location: Schloss Berlin (the Berlin City Palace)) Recorded in the palace inventories from 1793. - **1877-1930** Prussian royal house `[documented]` (recorded location: Schloss Monbijou) Inventories place the cabinet at Monbijou Palace, Berlin, from 1877. - **1930-1985** unrecorded in sources consulted `[unknown]` (gap) Recorded in the royal chambers of the Berlin Palace from 1930. No source consulted documents the cabinet's custody, location or survival through the Second World War, the palace's destruction by bombing in 1945, its demolition by the East German state in 1950, or the division of Berlin, up to 1985. The cabinet's own separately-stored original doors are independently recorded as present until 1939 and lost since 1945, which confirms at least that the palace museum's holdings were disrupted in this period, without establishing what happened to the cabinet itself. - **1985-present** Kunstgewerbemuseum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin `[documented]` (acquisition) Recorded as entering the Kunstgewerbemuseum's collection in 1985, inventory number O-1962,24. The specific acquisition mechanism (purchase, transfer between state institutions, or another route) is not given in the sources consulted. ## Open questions - Where was the cabinet, and in whose custody, between 1930 (last recorded in the royal chambers of the Berlin Palace) and 1985 (recorded entry into the Kunstgewerbemuseum)? No source consulted for this record documents its fate through the 1945 destruction of the Berlin Palace, the palace's 1950 demolition by the East German government, or the following three and a half decades. - What specifically happened to the cabinet's original pre-1786 marquetry doors, recorded at the palace museum until 1939 and lost since 1945? Whether they were destroyed, dispersed, or simply misplaced in wartime storage is not established. - What is the precise internal mechanical construction of the button-activated doors, drawers and writing surfaces - the springs, linkages and sequence of operation? A general description of what the mechanism does survives; a technical account of how it does it, of the kind published for other Roentgen pieces, was not located for this specific cabinet. - Was this cabinet included as a loan in the Metropolitan Museum's 2012-13 exhibition 'Extravagant Inventions: The Princely Furniture of the Roentgens'? Search results suggested a Kunstgewerbemuseum Berlin loan to that exhibition but this could not be confirmed against a primary checklist or catalogue entry, so it is not asserted in this record. - What did the Kunstgewerbemuseum pay, or receive as a transfer, for the 1985 acquisition, and by what mechanism (purchase, inter-museum transfer, restitution) did the object move from the Berlin Palace's royal chambers into the museum's collection? ## Sources - [1] Wikimedia Commons, File:David roentgen, scrittoio a ribalta, neuwied 1778-79, 01.jpg, photograph by Sailko, CC BY 3.0. - [2] Wikimedia Commons, File:David roentgen, scrittoio a ribalta, neuwied 1778-79, 02.jpg, photograph by Sailko, CC BY 3.0. - [3] museum-digital: staatliche museen zu berlin, object record for the 'Neuwieder Kabinett', Kunstgewerbemuseum, inventory O-1962,24. - [4] Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek, item record for the 'Neuwieder Kabinett', Kunstgewerbemuseum Berlin. - [5] Wikipedia (German), 'Kunstschranke aus der Manufaktur David Roentgen', section on the Berlin cabinet: provenance chain, price, and the 1786 door replacement. Flagged as an encyclopaedic tertiary source pending replacement with the museum's own published catalogue entry or a scholarly monograph (e.g. Wolfram Koeppe's Extravagant Inventions catalogue). - [6] Google Arts & Culture, 'Secretary Cabinet, Neuwieder Kabinett - David Roentgen', published via the Kunstgewerbemuseum Berlin's partnership content. - [7] The Decorative Arts Trust, photograph caption and entry for the Roentgen secretary cabinet at the Kunstgewerbemuseum Berlin, in 'Discovering Eastern Germany's Treasures'. - [8] MAK Blog (Museum fur angewandte Kunst, Vienna), 'Kundschaft in den hochsten Kreisen: Die Strategen der Roentgen Manufaktur', on Roentgen's court sales strategy, the Berlin cabinet's price and 1786 modification, and the loss of its original doors since 1945. - [9] Wikipedia (English), 'David Roentgen', for biography, the Marie Antoinette and Catherine the Great sales, and the 1792 Commerzienrat title. Tertiary source, flagged for replacement with a scholarly biography. - [10] Wikipedia (English), 'Abraham Roentgen', for Abraham Roentgen's biography and documented Moravian Church membership. Tertiary source, flagged for replacement. - [11] Christie's, lot description for 'A German ormolu-mounted and brass-inlaid amboyna, tulipwood, stained sycamore and marquetry mechanical cylinder bureau, by David Roentgen, Neuwied, circa 1776-1779', noting the inlaid 'DR' monogram. - [12] Royal Collection Trust, 'Attributed to David Roentgen (1743-1807), Mechanical cylinder bureau'. - [13] The Metropolitan Museum of Art, collection object page for a David Roentgen rolltop desk (Wrightsman Collection), documenting its 1786 invoice to Catherine the Great. - [14] The Metropolitan Museum of Art, press release for 'Extravagant Inventions: The Princely Furniture of the Roentgens', October 2012 - January 2013, curated by Wolfram Koeppe. --- 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.