BY THE MASTER IC OR JEAN DE COURT OR JEAN COURTOIS, SECOND HALF 16TH CENTURY

Details

A PAIR OF LIMOGES ENAMEL SALT CELLARS
BY THE MASTER IC OR JEAN DE COURT OR JEAN COURTOIS, SECOND HALF 16TH CENTURY
parcel-gilt polychrome enamel; with the profiles of a man and a woman to the top and richly decorated with masks, cherubs and mythological figures; each signed 'IC' to the underside of the foot; the foot of one cellar with a paper label inscribed 'E3'
5 ½ in. (14 cm.) high
3 ½ in. (9 cm.) diam.

Provenance

Baron Édouard de Rothschild (1868-1949).
Confiscated from the above by the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter
Rosenberg following the Nazi occupation of France in May 1940 (ERR no. R 3902 and R 3903).
Recovered by the Monuments Fine Arts and Archives Section from the Altaussee salt mines, Austria (no. 324/36), and transferred to the Munich Central Collecting Point, 23 June 1945 (MCCP no. 398/36).
Returned to France on 23 May 1946 and restituted to the Rothschild family.
By descent to the present owners.

Literature

COMPARATIVE LITERATURE

P. Verdier, Enamels, rugs and silver in the Frick Collection, vol. 8, New York, 1977, pp. 212-215.

Conditions of sale

Lot Essay

Several comparable examples of richly decorated salt cellars in baluster form and attributed to the Master IC are extant such as that in the Frick Collection, New York which also depicts comic heads at the bowl and a procession scene circling the foot (accession no. 1916.4.37, see Verdier, loc.cit.).

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