An unusual enamel snuff box with views of Dresden and Saxony
Coloured enamels on copper, silver mountings. Rectangular box with hinged lid. Painted with a view of the Elbe and the Hofkirche in Dresden dated 1756 to the sail of a ship and monogrammed H.C.N. The inside of the lid with a view of the Neustädter Ufer with the same ship in the foreground. A view of Pirna to the underside with Festung Sonnenstein. Repaired over a dent in the right half of the lid, various cracks. 4 cm x 9.2 cm x 6.7 cm.
Dresden, 1756.
Similar views can be found on Meissen porcelain snuff boxes, and thus we assume that the maker of this box was a manufactory employee. One possible candidate would be Johann George Heintze, as during a search of his house in 1748, several "copper boxes and walking stick handles" to be painted in enamels were discovered. However, nothing is recorded of Heintze's life after 1751. Another painter who is known to have partaken in illegal enamel painting is Christian Friedrich Herold (1700 - 1779), who came to the manufactory from Berlin in 1725 and is known to have provided the Berlin fancy goods seller Alexander Fromery with finely painted copper snuff boxes.
Provenance
Purchased from Galerie J. Kugel, Paris.
Literature
For documentation on this painter cf.: Rückert, Biographische Daten, Munich 1990, p. 155 ff.
Similar porcelain snuff boxes in: Bursche, Galanterien, Berlin 1996, no. 56, and in: Beaucamp-Markowsky, Porzellandosen, Munich 1985, no. 113 f.