A rare signed enamel snuffbox
Coloured enamel and gilding on copper corpus, with gilt copper mountings. Rectangular body with hinged lid. Decorated to all sides with quatrefoil reserves on blue enamel ground. The lid and base painted with pastoral scenes, the sides and spandrels of the lid with merchant navy scenes. The interior with two corresponding blue quatrefoil reserves on white ground, one with gilt foliage, strapwork, and trelliswork, the other with a star shaped gilt lace cartouche. Signed in the merchant navy scene in the base "Herold: a Meißen". Some wear to the enamel of the lower rim and interior, a restoration to the back left corner of the lid. H 3.7, W 7.4, D 5.6 cm.
Berlin, workshop of Pierre and Alexander Fromery, decorated by Christian Friedrich Herold, circa 1735/40.
The Berlin based enamel painter Christian Friedrich Herold (Berlin ca. 1700 - Meissen 1779) is thought to have entered an apprenticeship with Hoeroldt in the painting department of the Meissen porcelain manufactory in around 1725. Sources show that he continued to paint Berlin enamel boxes after this time and that several disciplinary measures were taken against him because of it. His house was searched in 1737 and enameled copper pieces were found which he had illegally painted there as a so-called “hausmaler”. The lid of this box, among many other pieces, attest to the fact that he still continued to supply the Fromery firm in Berlin. The lid depicts the flight of Stanislaw Leszczynski from Gdansk to the Duchy of Bar and is signed "Alex. Fromery a Berlin. Herold fecit". Alexander Fromery took over the Fromery “galanteriewarenhandel“ (fancy goods store) in 1738 following the death of his father Pierre. The firm increased its cooperation with Herold after this. Rainer Rückert discovered an archival notice from 24th May 1752 stating that “the painter Friedrich Herold (…) is able to permanently plate porcelain and glass items with figures of solid gold” this “émail de saxe” technique, sold by Fromery of Berlin, provided a significant competitive edge vis a vis French products.
Provenance
Lempertz auction 886, 27th May 2006, lot 169.
Literature
Fore more on Herold see: Rückert, Biographische Daten der Meißener Manufakturisten, Munich 1990, p. 156 f.
Cf. Weinhold, Emailmalerei, Berlin-Munich 2000, p. 161 f.
Cf. Lübke, Der Meißner Maler Christian Friedrich Herold - die charakteristischen Merkmale seiner künstlerischen Handschrift, in: Keramos 195/2007, p. 65-76. The box illus. on p. 69.