Provenance: Editor Valborg Elenore Sophie Andersen, 1868–1941. Ole Cavling, 1898–1963. Son. Marianne Cavling, d. 1975. Daughter. Claus Monberg. Spouse of Marianne. Claus Monberg was employed as an authorized signatory at the brokerage firm R. Henriques Jr., Copenhagen, and he sold the sideboard around 1976 together with the furniture set to the company, which kept it until it was sold at auction. Peter Krog, Bruun Rasmussen Auction 438, 1982. Birte Rud Lind, purchased from the above, hence by descent to the current owners.

The sideboard is among the first furniture pieces designed by Kaare Klint and made before his work at Faaborg Museum. Made to order for Valborg Elenore Andersen.

Valborg Elenore Sophie Andersen was a leading figure in the Danish Women's Society (Dansk Kvindesamfund) around the year 1900. Coming from a very modest upbringing, she became a well-known singer, but later on she threw herself into journalism with a specialty for critical social debate and topics such as the anarchists, women's rights and child-rearing. She also had a nose for business, and for decades she was the editor and driving force behind the family magazine Hjemmet (The Home) – a huge success in its time. Her motto was “Dip the pen in your heart and write.” She had two children out of wedlock, with two different men, while she was the sole breadwinner for her family. She had a paperless relationship and loose cohabitation with the well-known and married journalist and editor Henrik Cavling.

With her own means, she supported 35–40 women over periods of time and initiated the establishment of the Women's Home on Læssøesgade in Copenhagen, the first self-help women's home in Denmark. At the time of her death, she was buried in the anonymous burial grounds of Bisbebjerg Cemetery. She wanted no fuss to be made about her.

Valborg Elenore Sophie Andersen was a member of the Theosophical Society, which shows her unorthodox approach to life as well as the spiritual side of the human existence.

In addition to all this, she was also one of the very first, if not the first, to see the potential in Kaare Klint, long before he became the decisive figure in the development of Danish furniture design, and she ordered an entire set of furniture based on his drawings.

As a member of the Theosophical Society, the sideboard here and a cupboard in the furniture set were decorated with two of the Theosophy's central symbols: the hexagram, where the two combined triangles symbolize the spiritual and the physical, and then the swastika, which symbolizes the eternal process of creation.

There is a certain injustice in that a unique piece of furniture, designed by the absolutely central figure of Danish design, for a free woman whose life is a long testimony to liberty, opportunities, empathy, tolerance and openness can be misconstrued due to other peoples' later misuse of the same symbols that appear on this beautiful, historic piece of furniture.

Literature: Gorm Harkær, Klintiana: “Kaare Klint”, vol. 2, this very sideboard ill. p. 67.