現場拍賣 7850Centuries of Style: Silver, European Ceramics, Portrait Miniatures and Gold Boxes
A GERMAN THREE-COLOUR GOLD-MOUNTED HARDSTONE SNUFF-BOX
拍品 48 THE PROPERTY OF A LADY

A GERMAN THREE-COLOUR GOLD-MOUNTED HARDSTONE SNUFF-BOX

WORKSHOP OF FRIEDRICH LUDWIG HOF(F)MANN, PROBABLY BERLIN, CIRCA 1760/1765, LATER STRUCK WITH TWO FRENCH IMPORT MARKS FOR GOLD 1864-1893

已結束2010年6月10日

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GBP 49,250

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A GERMAN THREE-COLOUR GOLD-MOUNTED HARDSTONE SNUFF-BOX
WORKSHOP OF FRIEDRICH LUDWIG HOF(F)MANN, PROBABLY BERLIN, CIRCA 1760/1765, LATER STRUCK WITH TWO FRENCH IMPORT MARKS FOR GOLD 1864-1893
Oval box, of cloudy quartz applied with flowers and insects sculpted out of a variety of hardstones, including lapis lazuli, agate, carnelian, onyx and aventurine, the legs, antennae and details of the insects engraved and blackened, the lid decorated with a bouquet of flowers including roses, tulips and leaf-sprays, a butterfly hovering, the sides and reverse of the base decorated with a beetle, fly and ladybird, the rose gold cagework mounts reeded and chased with laurel swags, incorporated green and yellow gold thumbpiece chased with flowers
2 5/16 in. (60 mm.) wide

Christie's, Geneva, 15 November 1988, lot 247 (as in the Manner of F. L. Hoffmann, Dresden).
Paris, Hôtel Drouot, Room 3, 28 June 1989, lot 57 (as by Hoffmann à Dresde)
with Galerie Jacques Kugel, Paris, 1995.

專家說明

The application of hardstone insects on the present lot reflects the tradition of decorating Scythian warriors' breastplates with small talismanic creatures. It was believed that the more living souls depicted on an object, the more effectively it would bring its owner good fortune. A similarly decorated gold-mounted quartz snuff-box, signed 'F. L. Hoffmann', is in the Gilbert Collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, inventory no. GILBERT 416-2008 (C. Truman, The Gilbert Collection of Gold Boxes, Los Angeles, 1991, p. 192, pl. 66). The Louvre's collection also includes a similarly encrusted oval cloudy quartz snuff-box, inventory no. OA 2145 (S. Grandjean, Catalogue des tabatières, boîtes et étuis des XVIIIe et XIXe siècles du musée du Louvre, Paris, 1981, p. 291, pl. 442). Another oval snuff-box of cloudy quartz, encrusted with nearly identical fly and ladybird motifs is recorded in a Private Collection in Berlin (S. Bursche, Galanterien: Dosen, Etuis und Miniaturen aus Gold, Edelsteinen, Email und Porzellan. Eine Berliner Privatsammlung, Berlin, 1996, p. 92, no. 35).
The technique of raised hardstone decoration is usually associated with the court of Frederick the Great in Berlin and the rich mineral deposits found in Saxony. For the most recent information on Hof(f)mann, see L. Seelig, op. cit., pp. 258-261, 383-385.