ATTRIBUTED TO THE WORKSHOP OF PÉNICAUD, 16TH CENTURY

Details

A LIMOGES ENAMEL CASKET DEPICTING GROUPS OF PUTTI
ATTRIBUTED TO THE WORKSHOP OF PÉNICAUD, 16TH CENTURY
parcel-gilt polychrome and grisaille enamel; five plaques depicting putti playing, fighting and at the grape harvest; the scenes bordered with enamel panels; the mounts silver-gilt; the underside with a paper label inscribed 'E8'; the underside of the lid with a paper label inscribed 'P.48 / 182'
2 2⁄3 in. x 4 ½ x 3 1⁄8 in. (6 x 11.4 x 7.8 cm.)

Provenance

Collection Rothschild.
Confiscated from the above by the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg following the Nazi occupation of France in May 1940 (ERR no. R 3842).
Recovered by the Monuments Fine Arts and Archives Section from the Altaussee salt mines, Austria (no. 190/9), and transferred to the Munich Central Collecting Point, 20 June 1945 (MCCP no. 196/9).
Returned to France on 31 July 1946 and restituted to the Rothschild family.
By descent to the present owners.

Literature

COMPARATIVE LITERATURE
S. Baratte, Les émaux peints de Limoges, Paris, 2000, pp. 83-84.
V. Notin et al., La Rencontre des Héros, exhibition catalogue, Musée municipal de l'Évêché, Limoges, 2002, pp. 58-61.
S. Higgott, The Wallace Collection – Catalogue of Glass and Limoges Painted Enamels, London, 2011, pp. 220-231.

Exhibited

Probably Paris, Catalogue officiel illustré de l'Exposition Rétrospective de l'art français des origines à 1800, 1900, no. 2786.

Conditions of sale

Lot Essay

Caskets such as the present example would likely have been used as jewelry boxes and more than 20 examples depicting scenes of infant boys playing, music making and harvesting are extant today. This iconographic theme is collectively known as jeux d’enfants (children’s games) and is executed in the all’antica style. The subject matter would suggest that such boxes would be particularly appropriate as gifts to celebrate weddings or the birth of a son. The iconography of naked putti or infants playing is reminiscent of the scenes found on Italian fifteenth-century birth trays and sixteenth century maiolica childbirth sets (Higgott, op. cit. p. 227). The compositions of the scenes in the present lot are derived from an engraving by the IB Master, after Raphael, dated 1529. A comparable casket depicting the jeux d’enfants at the Louvre Museum also derives its compositions from the same Master IB engraving (inv. MR 2512).

More from Rothschild Masterpieces: The Kunstkammer

View All