THIRD QUARTER OF THE 18TH CENTURY, PROBABLY FÜRSTENBERG, THE MOUNTS CONTEMPORARY

Details

A GOLD-MOUNTED GERMAN PORCELAIN SNUFF-BOX AND COVER
THIRD QUARTER OF THE 18TH CENTURY, PROBABLY FÜRSTENBERG, THE MOUNTS CONTEMPORARY
With a concave front and sides and canted corners, the box sides painted with pink roses meandering around a continuous gilt-edged blue stave, the base and cover with shaped rectangular staves enclosing central shaped oval panels, the cover interior painted and stippled with characters from the Commedia dell’Arte in persuasive discussion with a lady seated in a formal garden, the mount chased with ribbon-tied reeds
2 7⁄8 in. (6.8 cm.) wide overall

Special notice

This lot has been imported from outside of the UK for sale and placed under the Temporary Admission regime. Import VAT is payable at 5% on the hammer price. VAT at 20% will be added to the buyer’s premium but will not be shown separately on our invoice.

Conditions of sale

Brought to you by

Isabelle Cartier-Stone Specialist

icartier-stone@christies.com +44 (0) 20 7389 2898

Lot Essay

R.G. Vater Collection no. 620 (paper collection label attached to box interior).

A lobed circular box with very similar blue-stave borders entwined with pink roses is illustrated by Barbara Beaucamp-Markowsky, Collection of 18th Century Boxes, on loan to the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, Amsterdam, 1988, pp. 118-119, no. 61, and also B. Beaucamp-Markowsky, Boîtes en Porcelaine, des manufactures européennes au 18e siècle, Fribourg, 1985, p. 313, no. 257. (and p. 290 for a col. pl.). In both publications she cites Siegfried Ducret’s 1965 work on Fürstenberg porcelain which illustrates a signed and dated plaque painted with figures which are very similar to the figures on the interior of the Rijksmuseum loan box.¹ In Ducret’s view, this made the Rijksmuseum loan box ‘the only tobacco box which can, with certainty, be ascribed to Fürstenberg. To our knowledge there are none with marks’. The plaque was dated 1767 and signed by Georg Heinrich Holtzmann (employed at Fürstenberg between 1757 and 1798).

1. Siegfried Ducret, Fürstenberger Porzellan, Brunswick, 1965, Vol. II, p. 63, fig. 56.

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