Live Auction 7999Centuries of Style: Silver, European Ceramics, Glass, Portrait Miniatures and Gold Boxes
AN ITALIAN PARCEL-GILT SILVER AND GEM-SET EBONISED WOOD CASKET
Lot 321

AN ITALIAN PARCEL-GILT SILVER AND GEM-SET EBONISED WOOD CASKET

BY WILHELM WIDEMANN, ROME, DATED 1883

Closed29 November 2011

Price Realised

GBP 25,000

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AN ITALIAN PARCEL-GILT SILVER AND GEM-SET EBONISED WOOD CASKET
BY WILHELM WIDEMANN, ROME, DATED 1883
Oblong and on four boldly cast mermaid feet, the front and back each set with silver panel cast and chased with grotesques and foliage scrolls on matted ground and centring cast female bust in high relief, the side with grotesque and foliage scroll cast panels, the corners each with a silver-gilt panel with engraved foliage, the cover of architectural form, the corners applied with female capped buttresses and with a finial cast as a further female, set with gems, the inside velvet lined and set with a panel engraved 'W. Widemann Roma 1883', signed on an internal plaque, on a conforming ebonised wood plinth
7½ in. (19.5 cm.) wide

Specialist note

Wilhelm Widemann (1856-1915)

Widemann, the son of a silversmith, was apprenticed first to Julius Erhard and then Fritz von Miller, the Munich silversmith. After his training he spent time working in Rome producing small decorative boxes during the third quarter of the 19th century. His work during this time, as demonstrated by the present casket, was strongly influenced by the Renaissance and Baroque style. After 1883 he returned to Germany, first to Munich and later Frankfurt, eventually dying in Berlin in 1915.