MARK OF DAVID ANDRÉ, PARIS, 1709

Details

A LOUIS XIV SILVER SUGAR CASTER
MARK OF DAVID ANDRÉ, PARIS, 1709
Elongated vase-form on circular foot, flat-chased with frieze of scrolls on matted ground, the lower body applied with lambrequins interspersed with flat-chased festoons of bird and arabesques under a pronounced gadrooned rib, the neck with flat-chased Régence ornament, the bayonet-mounted cover pierced with trellis and engraved foliate motifs, with bud finial, engraved with a coat-of- arms beneath a coronet, marked underneath the foot with maker; on flange with decharge; inside the body and cover with charge, date-letter (Q) and maker; on bayonet with decharge; with black painted David-Weill number D.W. 2131
8 ¾ in. (22.3 cm.) high
16 oz. 17 dwt. (524 gr.)
The arms are those of the Rätschi (also spelt Rotschi, Rutschi, Rotschy, Roschy, or Rotchy) an old bourgeois and patrician family of the city of Fribourg, Switzerland. The cross of the Order of Saint Louis suspended beneath these arms suggests that this member of the Rätschi served in the French royal army, possibly in either the Gardes Suisses or the Castella Regiment.

Provenance

The Rätschi family.
with Jacques Helft, Paris, 1928.
Acquired from the above by David David-Weill (1871-1952), , Neuilly-sur-Seine (inv. DW 2131)
Confiscated from the above following the Nazi occupation of Paris by the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg after May 1940 (ERR no. DW 3027).
Recovered by the Monuments Fine Arts and Archives Section from Neuschwanstein Castle, Germany, and transferred to the Munich Central Collecting Point, 3 September 1945 (MCCP no. 7949⁄37).
Repatriated to France, 2 March 1946, and subsequently restituted to David David-Weill on 21 June 1946.
The David-Weill Collection; Part 1, Orfèvrerie française des XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles, Palais Galliera, Paris, 4 June 1971, lot 1.
with Jacques Helft, Paris.
Acquired from the above by the Blaquier-Arrieta Family, 1971.

Conditions of sale

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Lot Essay

David André was the son of Guillaume André, a goldsmith in Bazas in Gironde. He was sponsored by Philippe Rougemaille and was active as a goldsmith in Paris from 1703 until his death in 1743. He appears to have specialised in the production of sugar casters.

Another caster dated 1714 was sold in The Stern Collection, Christie's, Paris, 11 December 2025, lot 44.

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