14. FREDRIC AUGUST ECKSTEIN (office master in Stockholm 1794-1814/17), a late Gustavian Stockholm work, label signed F.A. Eckstein Carpenters and Shatullmakers in Stockholm.

Veneered and solid mahogany, one short side with box, contoured legs, height 71.5, 89.5 x 44, unfolded 89.5 x 84 cm

PROVENANCE: Christopher O'Regan Collection

Christopher tells us:
From the text on the small paper label in the box, we meet Fredrik August Eckstein, the master of the Carpenter's Office and the shatullmaker Fredrik August Eckstein, who works in the “house no. 28 in St. Klara Bergsgränd”, that is, today's Klarabergsgatan, in the block opposite present-day Åhléns. The property had then for many years been in the possession of the Eckstein family, and likely Frederick August had spent his adolescent years there.
It is with a certain sting of sadness that one observes that he created his beautiful furniture in the part of the city that came to be completely obliterated during the ravages of the 1950s and 60s. A small detail that excites the mind is that in the appraisal length from 1799 we also find another tenant in the house, which illustrates how small Stockholm was still, namely none other than “poor court secretary widow Lovisa Fr. Bellman”; the surviving wife of bald Carl Michael.