A Berlin enamel snuff box with merchant navy scenes - image-1 A Berlin enamel snuff box with merchant navy scenes - image-2 A Berlin enamel snuff box with merchant navy scenes - image-3 A Berlin enamel snuff box with merchant navy scenes - image-4 A Berlin enamel snuff box with merchant navy scenes - image-5 A Berlin enamel snuff box with merchant navy scenes - image-6 A Berlin enamel snuff box with merchant navy scenes - image-7 A Berlin enamel snuff box with merchant navy scenes - image-8

Lot 28 D α

A Berlin enamel snuff box with merchant navy scenes

Auction 1217 - overview Berlin
22.04.2023, 11:00 - The Prussian Sale
Estimate: 1.500 € - 2.000 €
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A Berlin enamel snuff box with merchant navy scenes

Based on a Meissen design, with moulded silver mountings. Painted with three large scenes of merchants in gilt quatrefoil surrounds flanked by small round reserves with identical scenes in puce camaieu. H 4.3, W 6.7, D 6 cm.
Fromery manufactory, 1730s, decor attributed to Christian Friedrich Herold.

The Fromery manufactory's coloured enamel boxes were among the the most famous products to be made in Berlin, and were distributed throughout Europe. The trained goldsmith Pierre Fromery (1679 - 1738) specialised in the production of enamelled copper with gold plating. He founded a large distribution company for fancy goods (brushes, tobacco boxes, flasks), which was taken over by his son Alexander after his death.
Berlin-born Christian Friedrich Herold (1700 - 1769) worked as a enamel painter for Fromery, even after he had been engaged as a porcelain painter by Meissen in 1726. He repeatedly stole the precious purple pigment from the porcelain manufactory's stocks, for which he was punished with time in jail.

Provenance

From a Berlin collection.

Literature

An identical porcelain box by Meissen pub. in Röbbig (ed.), Meissener Tabatièren des 18. Jahrhunderts, Munich 2013, cat. no. 24.