Panelled alcove from a house in the Hebelstrasse

Description

Usually an alcove is a small, windowless niche functioning as a bedroom, connecting to the living room through a large opening. In the middle of the C17 this feature of interior design, originating, as the name recalls, from Arabia, came to Europe via Spain, and became widespread particularly in France. From the C18 it became a typical part of the interior decoration of bourgeois houses in Basle. This alcove with carved oak boiserie in Louis XV style from a house in the former Neue Vorstadt in Basle is firmly symmetrical: the opening in the middle, supplied with a curtain, behind which the bed chamber can be concealed, is flanked by two doors leading to a dressing room and a toilet respectively. The curvacious profile of the central opening, the relief carved cartouches in the spandrels of the arch, the frisky lines of the side panelling, the glazed windows and the marquetry panels of the side doors, all these are characteristic features of the Rococo style.