BRAUNSCHWEIG, CIRCA 1740

One of the more ingenious technical achievements of the eighteenth century was German glass beadwork from Braunschweig, with Johann Michael van Selow considered to be its finest craftsmen. Van Selow worked under the royal patronage of Duke Carl I of Braunschweig. His factory was in existence less than twenty years (1755-1772) and few examples of this colorful beadwork exist. Works by van Selow can be seen in the Städtische Museum in Braunschweig and in The Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle, among others. Perhaps the grandest example of his beadwork technique exists in a salon of the Chinese Palace at the Oranienbaum complex of palaces (now Lomonosov) near St. Petersburg. Built in the 1760s by Antonio Rinaldi for Catherine the Great, the building 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, see A. Kennett, The Palaces of Leningrad, 1973, p. 244.