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Lot Essay
A virtually identical table top by Johann Michael van Selow undoubtably executed from the same engraved source in the same workshop, is in the Leipzig Museum des Kunsthandwerks (see H. Kreisel, Die Kunst des Deutschen Möbels, vol. II, 1970, no.882).
One of the rarest and greatest technical achievements of the eighteenth century was German glass beadwork from Brunswick, with Johann Michael von Selow considered to be its finest craftsmen. Von Selow worked under the Royal patronage of Duke Carl I of Brunswick. The factory was in existence less than twenty years (1755-1772) and few examples of this colorful beadwork exist. Examples of von Selow's work can be seen in the Stadtischen Museum in Brunswick and in The Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle in England.
According to Christopher Wilk, Western Furniture 1350 to the Present Day, 1996, page 106, '...the beadwork was also applied to articles in tin plate and pottery, most pieces were made by covering a wooden core with linen. Composition was then applied, coloured as for the final pattern. The beads were strung on linen thread and laid out on pasteboard patterns before the strings were cut to size and laid onto the body of the piece. Larger pieces of glass imitating various hardstones such as agate or porphyry were used, as were small enamel plaques which were also embedded into the composition with mother-of-pearl and other materials.'
'Cracking and movement of the wooden frames make these pieces quite fragile, which may be one reason for their rarity; but the brilliant colors of the unfading glass beads is a strong reminder of the vivid and cheerful colours of the Rococo.'
Perhaps the grandest example of this beadwork exists in a salon of the Chinese Palace at the Oranienbaum complex of palaces (now Lomonosov) near St. Petersburg. Built in the 1760's by Antonio Rinaldi for Catherine the Great, the room contains panels depicting fantastic rococo chinoiserie scenes of embroidered and painted silk, perhaps after the designs of Jean Pillement, which are surrounded by large panels woven of blue, mauve and pink glass beads. (A. Kennett, The Palaces of Leningrad, 1973, p.244.)
Another beadwork table from the workshop of van Selow was sold from the Collection of Arne Schlesch, Sotheby's New York, 5 April 2000, lot 336 ($23,750).
One of the rarest and greatest technical achievements of the eighteenth century was German glass beadwork from Brunswick, with Johann Michael von Selow considered to be its finest craftsmen. Von Selow worked under the Royal patronage of Duke Carl I of Brunswick. The factory was in existence less than twenty years (1755-1772) and few examples of this colorful beadwork exist. Examples of von Selow's work can be seen in the Stadtischen Museum in Brunswick and in The Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle in England.
According to Christopher Wilk, Western Furniture 1350 to the Present Day, 1996, page 106, '...the beadwork was also applied to articles in tin plate and pottery, most pieces were made by covering a wooden core with linen. Composition was then applied, coloured as for the final pattern. The beads were strung on linen thread and laid out on pasteboard patterns before the strings were cut to size and laid onto the body of the piece. Larger pieces of glass imitating various hardstones such as agate or porphyry were used, as were small enamel plaques which were also embedded into the composition with mother-of-pearl and other materials.'
'Cracking and movement of the wooden frames make these pieces quite fragile, which may be one reason for their rarity; but the brilliant colors of the unfading glass beads is a strong reminder of the vivid and cheerful colours of the Rococo.'
Perhaps the grandest example of this beadwork exists in a salon of the Chinese Palace at the Oranienbaum complex of palaces (now Lomonosov) near St. Petersburg. Built in the 1760's by Antonio Rinaldi for Catherine the Great, the room contains panels depicting fantastic rococo chinoiserie scenes of embroidered and painted silk, perhaps after the designs of Jean Pillement, which are surrounded by large panels woven of blue, mauve and pink glass beads. (A. Kennett, The Palaces of Leningrad, 1973, p.244.)
Another beadwork table from the workshop of van Selow was sold from the Collection of Arne Schlesch, Sotheby's New York, 5 April 2000, lot 336 ($23,750).