拍品專文
Three of the bottle covers depict scenes inspired by Classical literature;
1) Venus indicating a boat and advising Aeneas to depart form Troy, taken from Virgil's Aeneid
2) The Loves of the Gods, with Venus and Adonis attended by Cupid, taken from Ovid's Metamorphoses
3) The philsopher Diogones requesting Alexander the Great to stand out of his light, having been asked by Alexander if he wished for anything, thus symbolising the happiness of one who desired nothing for himself, taken from Juvenal's Satire. The composition derives from an etching of the 1660's by Salvator Rosa (d.1673)
The fourth is in the Dutch manner and depicts the rustic scene of a pipe-smoking youth accompanied by a companion bearing a sun shade, who holds his mug out to a maid with a jug
The art of the gold chaser was used to great effect on watch cases of the mid-18th century. The chasers, many of whom were of foreign birth, were held in great esteem for their technical and artistic skill. One of the best known, George Michael Moser (1706-1783), called by Sir Joshua Reynolds 'the Father of the present race of artists', did much to raise their position above that of craftmen. With John Valentine Haidt he set up a life school in the 1730s and was the first Keeper of the Royal Academy in 1768. Richard Edgcumbe discusses Moser and his fellow gold chasers at length in his article 'Gold Chasing' in the Victoria and Albert Museum exhibition catalogue Rococo, Art and Design in Hogarth's England, 1984, p.127-128. He observes that a broad spectrum of scenes were used, inspired by not only such books as Lord Shaftesbury's Characteristicks but also from prints after French, Flemish and Italian masters as shown by the diversity of the subject in the covers of the present lot
1) Venus indicating a boat and advising Aeneas to depart form Troy, taken from Virgil's Aeneid
2) The Loves of the Gods, with Venus and Adonis attended by Cupid, taken from Ovid's Metamorphoses
3) The philsopher Diogones requesting Alexander the Great to stand out of his light, having been asked by Alexander if he wished for anything, thus symbolising the happiness of one who desired nothing for himself, taken from Juvenal's Satire. The composition derives from an etching of the 1660's by Salvator Rosa (d.1673)
The fourth is in the Dutch manner and depicts the rustic scene of a pipe-smoking youth accompanied by a companion bearing a sun shade, who holds his mug out to a maid with a jug
The art of the gold chaser was used to great effect on watch cases of the mid-18th century. The chasers, many of whom were of foreign birth, were held in great esteem for their technical and artistic skill. One of the best known, George Michael Moser (1706-1783), called by Sir Joshua Reynolds 'the Father of the present race of artists', did much to raise their position above that of craftmen. With John Valentine Haidt he set up a life school in the 1730s and was the first Keeper of the Royal Academy in 1768. Richard Edgcumbe discusses Moser and his fellow gold chasers at length in his article 'Gold Chasing' in the Victoria and Albert Museum exhibition catalogue Rococo, Art and Design in Hogarth's England, 1984, p.127-128. He observes that a broad spectrum of scenes were used, inspired by not only such books as Lord Shaftesbury's Characteristicks but also from prints after French, Flemish and Italian masters as shown by the diversity of the subject in the covers of the present lot