Most of the architectural elements in this room come from the Stiegerhof, a manor house renovated by the Paul family in the late 1500s. Stone portraits, possibly representing members of the family, are hung on one wall but were originally on the outside of the house, above the main entrance.
A local master woodworker and builder named Urban Holzwurm undertook much of the renovation work on the Stiegerhof. From the manor's principal reception room, which was located on the second floor, come the stone lavabo (wall fountain), the two doorways with columns and pediments, and the cornices and cornices and cupboards. Also from the room is the large ceramic stove of a type widely used in northern and central Europe in the 1500s.
The designs of the door frames are adaptations from Italian Renaissance architecture. Their simplicity contrasts with complicated inlay patterns on the doors themselves, which reflect the more elaborate ornamentation of the late 1500s in Austria and Germany.
From other rooms in the Stiegerhof come the ceiling, the floor, the window with its stone frame and stained-galls rondels, and the doorway bearing the date 1542.
Barquist, David L. “‘The Interior Will Be as Interesting as the Exterior Is Magnificent’: American Period Rooms at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.” Winterthur Portfolio 46, no. 2/3 (2012): 139–60. https://doi.org/10.1086/668630.
“A Room of the German Renaissance.” Bulletin of the Pennsylvania Museum 25, no. 129 (1929): 15–17. https://doi.org/10.2307/3794435.
