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Lot 51W
LARS KINSARVIK (1846-1925) Corner Cabinet
1908-09
carved and painted pine, painted brass escutcheons
height 82 1/4in (209cm); width 46 1/2in (118cm); depth 27 1/2in (70cm)
1908-09
carved and painted pine, painted brass escutcheons
height 82 1/4in (209cm); width 46 1/2in (118cm); depth 27 1/2in (70cm)
30 September 2025, 12:00 EDT
New YorkSold for US$40,960 inc. premium
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LARS KINSARVIK (1846-1925)
Corner Cabinet
1908-09
carved and painted pine, painted brass escutcheons
height 82 1/4in (209cm); width 46 1/2in (118cm); depth 27 1/2in (70cm)
1908-09
carved and painted pine, painted brass escutcheons
height 82 1/4in (209cm); width 46 1/2in (118cm); depth 27 1/2in (70cm)
Footnotes
Provenance
Lars Kinsarvik, Norway
Harold Lange, Norway (acquired from the above, circa 1909)
Lange Family, Portland, Oregan, 1993
Jason Jacques, New York (acquired directly from the above)
Writing on May 3, 1909 to Harald Lange, who eventually purchased this corner cabinet, Kinsarvik described his sources of inspiration, his thoughts on the Viking Revival, and the rejection of color in Norwegian decoration. He noted the Vikings accomplished "something other than war and pillaging," when they transported the Irish and Anglo-Saxon arts, which the "people of the North," through their "divine capability," transformed into something genuinely recognizable as their own.
Describing his art as a "Norwegian renaissance" of old forms with ornamentation dating to the early Iron Age and the period of the Vikings, Kinsarvik commented extensively on the legend that inspired him to craft this cabinet:
"There was once a vicarage surrounded by cherry trees, which employed a good farm hand named Rolf. The boy fell for the daughter of a farmer on the other side of the fjord, and the vicar went to the parents to speak on Rolf's behalf. As part of his testimony, the vicar declared Rolf to be such a good man that he could not refuse him his own daughter Brynhilde's hand in marriage. The family across the fjord was unconvinced, and Rolf married the vicar's daughter. It turned out that Rolf came from a good family, and his father (Ørnulf of Østbygdene in the Eastern parishes) sent the young couple a dowry. It included a wall-hung corner cabinet that survived the centuries, albeit blackened and smoky in an outbuilding."
The story of this wedding cupboard formed the basis for Kinsarvik's design, and the fanciful folk figures adorning the upper and lower escutcheons were likely a tribute to Brynhilde and Rolf. While the artist did not identify a source for the bats in the upper part of the cabinet, these abound on historic structures like the Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim, and Kinsarvik's contemporaries—woodcarver Ole Moene and silversmith Henrik Møller—appropriated and adapted the creatures in their work.
Lange, in whose family the cabinet descended until 1993, was a merchandise broker living in Portland, Oregon. Twenty years younger than Kinsarvik, he was born in Stavanger, Norway. A trader, his Norwegian employers included the prestigious glass retailer Christiania Glasmagasin, and the ceramics manufacturer Egersund Fayancefabrik (1847–1979) before he established his own trading business in 1893. In 1902, he immigrated to the United States with his family, and they lived briefly in North Dakota before settling in Portland, where Lange edited a weekly Norwegian language newspaper, Pacific Skandinaven, and ran an importing business.