283. CARL LINDBORG (office master in Stockholm 1781-1808), a pair of similar chests of drawers, High Gustavian Stockholm work, veneered with amaranth, birch, jacaranda and masur birch, burnished brass fittings.

Straight shape with slanted corners, engraved intarsia decor with inlaid carnuba wax, upper box with cornucopia, co-composed front with fruit basket filled with lemon, cherry, grapes and apple, illusory console, sides with urns, round pull handles with laurel wreaths, key sign with band rosette, lower front sarger with fittings of banner rosette and bearing festoons, slab of limestone with slats, one chest with inscription in red chalk: “Herr Inspector Schedin på Leufsta Bruk” and “L; C;” and pencil inscription: “Doctor Petrus Ranström bought this chest of drawers in a farmhouse in Kalfsbo village near Löfsta bruk, where it stood at the castle until the end of the 18th century when it was sold at auction to a listed farmhouse. Älfkarlen den 2 august 1917", disc marked in red chalk “L; C;”, second bureau with label from Bernhard Sylvén, Stockholm renovated 1950, height 80, 107,5 x 54 cm

PROVENANCE: One agency formerly in the collections at Leufsta bruk, Österlövsta parish, Uppsala County
Provincial physician Petrus Ranström (1881-1953) married Suzanne Larsson (1884-1958), Eskilstuna
Sotheby's, Important French and Continental Furniture, London 5 July 2006, No 154, sold as a pair of chests of drawers
purchased by banker and financier Bernhard Kelly (1930-2022), London

LITERATURE: Torsten Sylvén: Mästernas Möbler - Stockholmsarbeten 1700-1850, Stockholm 1996, page 224, compare intarsia decor in dresser by Carl Lindborg.

It is relatively rare to have chests of drawers in pairs of the large format that the ones now in question represent. Lindborg most often worked in this format of dressers, which appear on the market as one of originally a pair or as in our case a pair of similar chests of drawers. Undoubtedly, many of the intarsia furniture that appears on the market today as stills have been separated from their heritage by inheritance and division of property, a fate that befell many castle and manor collections, especially in the first half of the 20th century. Gustavian chests of drawers in pairs of are otherwise known at the Tamms Fånöö manor house, where a pair of Gustaf Foltjern's were in the drawing room in the 1920s. The auction chests have the paired horns of the upper drawer front, which is very characteristic of the master, combined with the fruit basket of the co-composed front.

The cabinets are generally in good condition and represent most of Lindborg's High Gustavian production. The master has composed beautiful exotic veneers using native woods, such as amaranth, birch, jacaranda and masur birch. In the fronts of the bureaus, motifs with fruit baskets predominate in which lemons and grapes from distant lands coexist with cherries and grape twigs, all effectually placed on an illusory console. The short sides are decorated with lid urns, one of the favorite motifs of the Gustavian period, which can be found on mirrors, console tables and as silver sugar bowls.

A contemporary 18th-century inscription in red chalk shows that one of the offices once resided at the de Geer family's Leufsta mill, when it was addressed to Inspector Schedin of the mill. According to a pencil inscription from 1917, the agency was bought from a farm in Kalvsbo, near Lövstabruk, by the art-interested provincial doctor Petrus Ranström. The latter was married to artist Carl Larsson's eldest daughter, Suzanne Larsson, and was the initiator of the founding of Eskilstuna kunstforening in 1926, where he was curator and sat on the purchasing board for 20 years. Suzanne who was born in 1884 when the Larsson family still lived in the French artists' colony in the village of Grez-sur-Loing. In 1910 she took her nursing degree as a Red Cross sister at Sophiahemmet in Stockholm and worked in Domnarvet, the following year, on 31 August 1911 she married Petrus Ranström who was born in Stora Tuna in Dalarna. Petrus and his wife Suzanne are buried at Sundborn Cemetery together with the Carl Larsson family.