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Lot Essay
This golden toilette-table casket, wreathed by a pearled and flowered ribbon-guilloche, is shell-filigreed in varied colours in the Louis Quatorze Roman fashion and celebrates Loves Triumph. The caskets altar-hollowed dome depicts Venus attended at her toilette by the Graces and Cupids companions.
The Wildenstein casket belongs to a distinguished group, all identical in shape and construction and obviously made in the same workshop towards the end of the reign of Louis XIV. Decorated with scenes of the Toilet of Venus, this group comprises:- three from Hamilton Palace, of which one was sold from the collection of Arturo Lopez-Willshaw, Sotheby's Monaco, 23 June 1976, and is now in the J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu; another was sold by Mrs. Nellie Ionides at Sotheby's London, 22 November 1963, lot 1; and the other was sold anonymously at Christie's New York, 21 October 1997, lot 20. This was sold from a Private Collection along with two further examples, lots 19 and 21; another sold at Ader Picard Tajan, Paris, 28 November 1978, lot 149; another sold from the Keck Collection, Sotheby's New York, 4 December 1991, lot 8; and a final example is in the Jones Collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum (O. Brackett, Catalogue of the Jones Collection, London, 1930, p.7, no.100).
This particular decorative technique with tinted horn was used on the bureau from Knole sold at Christie's London, 17 June, 1987, lot 73; on the related bureau formerly in the collection of Arturo Lopez-Willshaw and Baron de Redé (illustrated in H. Hayward, World Furniture, London, 1970, p.96; and on two tables sold, respectively from the Keck Collection, Sotheby's New York, 5-6 December 1991, lot 31, and the Patiño Collection, Sotheby's New York, 20 May 1992, lot 57. This distinctive technique was practised in Germany at the time and there is a possibility that all these pieces were made there (G. de Bellaigue, The James A. de Rothschild Collection at Waddesdon Manor, Furniture, 1974, vol. II, No. 114, pp. 550-557).
Interestingly, a casket of similar character inlaid with mother-of-pearl and tortoiseshell on a brass ground is signed Fried. Luchtenstein Dusseldorf 1706, (sold Sotheby's Monaco, 23 February, 1986, lot 784).
A portrait by Jean-Marc Nattier of Mme. Marsolier and her daughter in the Metropolitan Museum of Art shows the former holding a related box, whilst on her dressing table lies another whose decoration is very close to the Wildenstein casket.
The Wildenstein casket belongs to a distinguished group, all identical in shape and construction and obviously made in the same workshop towards the end of the reign of Louis XIV. Decorated with scenes of the Toilet of Venus, this group comprises:- three from Hamilton Palace, of which one was sold from the collection of Arturo Lopez-Willshaw, Sotheby's Monaco, 23 June 1976, and is now in the J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu; another was sold by Mrs. Nellie Ionides at Sotheby's London, 22 November 1963, lot 1; and the other was sold anonymously at Christie's New York, 21 October 1997, lot 20. This was sold from a Private Collection along with two further examples, lots 19 and 21; another sold at Ader Picard Tajan, Paris, 28 November 1978, lot 149; another sold from the Keck Collection, Sotheby's New York, 4 December 1991, lot 8; and a final example is in the Jones Collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum (O. Brackett, Catalogue of the Jones Collection, London, 1930, p.7, no.100).
This particular decorative technique with tinted horn was used on the bureau from Knole sold at Christie's London, 17 June, 1987, lot 73; on the related bureau formerly in the collection of Arturo Lopez-Willshaw and Baron de Redé (illustrated in H. Hayward, World Furniture, London, 1970, p.96; and on two tables sold, respectively from the Keck Collection, Sotheby's New York, 5-6 December 1991, lot 31, and the Patiño Collection, Sotheby's New York, 20 May 1992, lot 57. This distinctive technique was practised in Germany at the time and there is a possibility that all these pieces were made there (G. de Bellaigue, The James A. de Rothschild Collection at Waddesdon Manor, Furniture, 1974, vol. II, No. 114, pp. 550-557).
Interestingly, a casket of similar character inlaid with mother-of-pearl and tortoiseshell on a brass ground is signed Fried. Luchtenstein Dusseldorf 1706, (sold Sotheby's Monaco, 23 February, 1986, lot 784).
A portrait by Jean-Marc Nattier of Mme. Marsolier and her daughter in the Metropolitan Museum of Art shows the former holding a related box, whilst on her dressing table lies another whose decoration is very close to the Wildenstein casket.