拍品 152
152
A MEISSEN GOLD-MOUNTED MASONIC TRIANGULAR SNUFF-BOX modelled by J.J. Kändler, the cover painted with Venus holding a cornucopia and standing beside a column inscribed Le grand Art de se taire, various masonic attributes at her feet, the sides with gallants and companions before monuments in parklands, the underside with three eagles perched on a rocky outcrop holding a thread in their beaks forming a triangle inscribed above Trois au veritable. within a broad gilt band, the interior of the cover with a mason wearing a masonic apron and holding a hammer and a plumb line standing before a blue curtain and surrounded by masonic attributes and the base of the interior richly gilt (very slight rubbing to gilding at corners base), circa 1745

細節
A MEISSEN GOLD-MOUNTED MASONIC TRIANGULAR SNUFF-BOX modelled by J.J. Kändler, the cover painted with Venus holding a cornucopia and standing beside a column inscribed Le grand Art de se taire, various masonic attributes at her feet, the sides with gallants and companions before monuments in parklands, the underside with three eagles perched on a rocky outcrop holding a thread in their beaks forming a triangle inscribed above Trois au veritable. within a broad gilt band, the interior of the cover with a mason wearing a masonic apron and holding a hammer and a plumb line standing before a blue curtain and surrounded by masonic attributes and the base of the interior richly gilt (very slight rubbing to gilding at corners base), circa 1745
9cm. wide
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拍品專文

Kändler's report in his work journal of 1741 lists 'A snuff-box in the shape of a triangle ordered by Mister Secretario Vithen, Freemason'. An example with identical scenes was sold by Christie's London, 29 November 1973, lot 55 and another with waved sides bearing the same scene as on the base of the present example was sold by Christie's London, 7 May 1973, lot 190. Two further examples of this shape exist, one decorated with chinoiseries and the other with Callot dwarves illustrated by Barbara Beaucamp-Markowsky, Collection of 18th Century Porcelain Boxes, nos. 10 and 32 respectively

The two lots mentioned above although almost identical in every other respect (landscape decoration and allegorical subjects) display clear differences of detail in the actual depiction of the Freemason. This would lead one to suppose that all the boxes in this group were commissioned by a Masonic Lodge but the individual details were dictated by the members themselves