Furniture for the Dream King: Ludwig II і Anton Possenbacher, Munich Cabinet-maker до Bavarian Court

263 illustrations.

Anton Pössenbacher (1842–1920), cabinet-maker to the Bavarian court in Munich, was head of one of the largest late 19th-century German makers of luxury furnishings. His furniture, especially those for King Ludwig II of Bavaria (1871–1886), represent German Historicism at its zenith. Pössenbacher created almost all the furniture for the royal apartments at Linderhof, Herrenchiemsee and Neuschwanstein. Intricately carved and lavishly upholstered in gold brocade and dazzling embroidered pictures, these furnishings are highlights in the sumptuous interiors of Bavarian castles. Made to the specifications of an exacting monarch, these masterpieces of the cabinet-maker’s craft have lost nothing of their original fascination.

One of Pössenbacher's clients was King Charles I of Romania, for whom he designed an elegant palace library in Bucharest (1887). Pössenbacher’s clients also included industrialists, merchants and landed gentry, whose town houses and manors he provided with entire rooms.

The present book introduces the full range of furniture by Anton Pössenbacher viewed in their historical context. Numerous new photographs of the interior decoration of the Bavarian royal castles and hitherto unpublished designs for private commissions as well as a scholarly catalogue which also incorporates all relevant invoices from the ledgers kept by the cabinet of Ludwig II make this a standard work on the luxury furniture of Historicism.