THIRD QUARTER 16TH CENTURY

Details

A HEXAGONAL LIMOGES ENAMEL SALT CELLAR DEPICTING THE LABORS OF HERCULES
THIRD QUARTER 16TH CENTURY
parcel-gilt polychrome enamel with later silver-gilt mounts; the sides inscribed with descriptions of the six scenes; the top and underside with the profiles of man and woman
4 in. (10 cm.) high
3 ½ in. (8.5 cm.) diam.

Provenance

Probably Alphonse de Rothschild (1827-1905).
Baron Édouard de Rothschild (1868-1949), in the Fumoir sur la cour in the hôtel Saint-Florentin, Paris.
Confiscated from the above by the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg following the Nazi occupation of Paris in May 1940 (ERR no. R 3881).
Recovered by the Monuments Fine Arts and Archives Section from the Altaussee salt mines, Austria (no. 190/14), and transferred to the Munich Central Collecting Point, 20 June 1945 (MCCP no. 196/14).
Returned to France on 31 July 1946 and restituted to the family.
By descent to the present owners.

Literature

COMPARATIVE LITERATURE
S. Baratte, Les émaux peints de Limoges, Paris, 2000, pp.260-261 and 266-269.

Exhibited

Probably Paris, Palais de l'industrie, Musée Rétrospectif, Union centrale des Beaux-Arts appliqués à l'industrie, 10 August-10 October 1865, p. 228, no. 2594.

Conditions of sale

Lot Essay

Scenes from the Twelve Labors of Hercules were popular iconographic motifs among Limoges enamellers, particularly lending themselves to hexagonal salt cellars in which half the scenes from the cycle could be portrayed sequentially on each side. Three comparable examples of the same format and subject matter can be found in the Louvre each dated to the mid-16^th century and attributed to Pierre Reymond (inv. nos. MR R 155, OA 978a and OA 978b, see Baratte, loc. cit.).

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