A SAXON GOLD AND HARDSTONE SNUFF-BOX

细节

A SAXON GOLD AND HARDSTONE SNUFF-BOX
BY JOHANN-CHRISTIAN NEUBER, DRESDEN, CIRCA 1785/1790

Oval box, the cover, sides and base inset with six oval petrified wood panels mounted à jour, that on the lid framed by a burnished gold mount enamelled with translucent green leaves alternating with opaque white pellets, against a ground of radiating gold-mounted panels of striped agate alternating with carnelian plaques, below floral festoons in different hardstones hung from simulated pearls, the sides and base with a matching hardstone pattern, the rims engraved with a ribbon-twist motif enclosing flowerheads, the inside of the cover engraved with dedication "A Present from the Queen to Earl Harcourt 1792", damaged.
85 mm. wide

来源

Given by Queen Charlotte of England to George Simon, 2nd Earl Harcourt (1736-1809), Master of the Horse to the Queen 1790-1809
Thence by family descent until 1993.

展览

London, Sotheby's, The Glory of the Garden, 1987, cat. no. 206

拍品专文

The spotted brown stone used for the central panels is described in Neuber's booklet accompanying lot 58 of the present sale as number 37: "Petrification de bois, couverte d'yeux, qui ressemblent à ceux de Sansonnet." This stone reappears also in the famous table given by the Elector of Saxony to the Baron de Breteuil in 1780 (published by Jean-Louis de Rambures, "L'orfèvre minéralogiste Neuber", Connaissance des Arts, August 1970, p. 42), as no. 96 and is described as "Pierre figuré d'un Etorneau, de Chemnitz.", both Sansonnet and Etorneau meaning starling.