The Property of Friedrich, Baron von Stumm, formerly in the Collection of Ferdinand Edouard, Baron von Stumm The great-grandfather of the present owner, Ferdinand Edouard, Baron von Stumm (1843-1925), was a distinguished military officer, diplomat, business man and art collector. In the 1860s, after taking part in the military campaigns in Schleswig-Holstein and the Seven Weeks War, he fought with the British against the Abyssinians. He subsequently published an autobiographical account entitled My Experiences with the English Expedition in Abyssinia. From 1869, he entered the diplomatic service, although he was soon again on active service in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. In 1871 he was appointed Prussian Charg/ae d'affaires to the Vatican. He served in the Embassies in St. Petersburg and London, was Imperial Envoy to Copenhagen in 1877 and Ambassador to Madrid in 1879 and apparently again from 1887-1892. After Bismarck's fall from grace, von Stumm remained, unlike many politicians, loyal to the former Chancellor. In 1893 he retired from the diplomatic service. After the death of his brother Carl Ferdinand, he became Chairman of the firm of Gebrüder Stumm AG, and was also the owner of other important industrial enterprises. Apart from his varied career, Ferdinand von Stumm's passionate interest was art. He spent part of every year in Florence, where he played a considerable part in the maintenance of the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florence. His art collection was very extensive and included Spanish fine and decorative art collected during his posting to Madrid. When sold in Berlin in 1932 (1), it comprised almost 500 lots including an important Goya portrait of Antonio des Noriega, subsequently in the Kress Collection, and now in the National Gallery, Washington (2). The Spanish decorative arts included furniture, tiles, ecclesiastical vestments, carved rock crystal and a distinguished collection of silver. It is indicative of the quality of the silver collection as a whole that a dozen major pieces of Spanish silver now in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum (3) were formerly in the von Stumm Collection. 1. Stumm, F. von, Antiquitaten und alte Gemalde aus dem Nachlass des verstorbenen Frieherr F. von Stumm. Berlin (Deneke), 4 October 1932 2. Brown, J. and Mann, R., Spanish Paintings of the Fifteenth through Nineteenth Centuries, Washington, DC, 1990, pp. 21-223. 3. All described and illustrated in Oman, C., The Golden Age of Hispanic Silver, London, 1968, cat. nos. 38, 39, 42, 97, 103, 106, 112, 129, 129a, 130, 131, 138 and 147. All of these pieces were acquired by the American collector of Iberian silver Dr. W. L. Hildburgh, who left his collection to the Victoria and Albert Museum on his death in 1955.

A GERMAN COPPER-GILT MOUNTED LEATHER SHOE-MAKER'S GUILD CUP

DATED 1567

Details

A GERMAN COPPER-GILT MOUNTED LEATHER SHOE-MAKER'S GUILD CUP
dated 1567
Formed as a leather shoe with thick sole, the side with copper-gilt ropework lacing, the pointed up-curved toe similarly mounted with an embowed dolphin, its tail hung with a bell, the silver-gilt border engraved with two flowerheads within circles, a band of scrolling foliage on hatched ground and the date 1567
Shoe size 17.8 cm. (7 in.) long

Sale room notice

Please note that all mounts are copper-gilt.
Veuillez noter que toutes les montures de ce lot sont en cuivre dore.

Lot Essay

A number of somewhat similar silver-gilt mounted leather cups survive and were presumably presented to the shoemakers' guilds of various German cities. "The occasions that might lead to such a cup being acquired by the guild were various; it might be presented by a warden of the guild on completion of his year of office, by a journeyman on admission as master of his craft or, perhaps, in lieu of a fine, by a guild member who had committed some minor offence against the guild regulation." (see Timothy B. Schroder, The Francis E. Fowler, Jr. Collection of Silver, Los Angeles, 1991, p.79).

In addition to two unmarked early 16th Century examples, one of which is engraved with the arms of Memmingen (Swabia), in the Fowler Collection (see Schroder, op cit, cat. nos. 91 and 92), another is recorded as being in the Nehrsheimer Collection (Albert Schroder, Alte Goldschmiedearbeiten, Münich, 1929, pl. 23). A further shoe cup with almost identical dolphin mount to that on the present lot but with a cover, by Melchior Mager, Nuremberg, circa 1580, was in the Joseph Brummer Collection (Parke Bernet, New York, April 21, 1949, lot 296) and subsequently in the Kramarsky Collection (Christie's New York, October 30, 1991, lot 68). A fifth example of very similar form to the latter is in the Morgan Collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Jones, A. E., Illustrated Catalogue of the Collection of Old Plate of J. Pierpont Morgan, London 1908, pl. LXX).

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