AN IMPORTANT SAXON HARDSTONE AND ENAMEL GOLD SNUFF-BOX

细节

AN IMPORTANT SAXON HARDSTONE AND ENAMEL GOLD SNUFF-BOX
BY JOHANN-CHRISTIAN NEUBER, DRESDEN, MARKED, CIRCA 1785, THE ENAMEL PLAQUE BY FRANZ JOSEPH HÜBNER, SIGNED

Oval box, the cover, sides and base inlaid with moss agate ovolos on a gold ground encrusted with interlaced striated agate and carnelian stripes scattered with oval polished gold reserves inlaid with Zellenmosaik flowers in various hardstones including lapis-lazuli and agate, the cover centred by an oval enamel miniature painted en grisaille, depicting a young couple using a mirror to light incense, applied with a scrolling thumbpiece centred with a circular herborised agate plaque
92 mm. wide

拍品专文

Works by Johann Christian Neuber hallmarked as in the present case are extremely rare. One, with an identical mark, was published by Robert Schmidt ("Eine Neuberdose", Pantheon, XXIX, 1942, January-June, pp. 142-144) who knew only one other box with the marks "NEU BER" and "DRE SDE" (op. cit., p. 143).
For another one, see Charles Truman, The Gilbert Collection of Gold Boxes, Los Angeles, 1991, p. 231.
The blue counter-enamel of the miniature is signed Franz Jos: Hübner. The enamellist Joseph Hübner is recorded by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler, Leipzig, XVIII, 1925, p. 47, as working in Dresden in 1784 and leaving for Teplitz in 1799.
A Neuber box with similar moss agate panels is illustrated in A. Kenneth Snowman, Eighteenth Century Gold Boxes of Europe, Woodbridge, 1990, p. 325 pl. 680.