A THREE-COLOUR GOLD AND ENAMEL SNUFF BOX, JEAN-JOSEPH BARRIÈRE, PARIS, 1771

A THREE-COLOUR GOLD AND ENAMEL SNUFF BOX, JEAN-JOSEPH BARRIÈRE, PARIS, 1771

oval, the lid centred with an oval enamel medallion painted en sépia with Venus and Adonis below turtle doves, within a chased swagged frame, below a female mask, on a pink simulated marble enamel ground within a chased two-colour gold border enclosing turquoise enamel beads, the sides and base with shaped panels painted en plein with amorous attributes within richly chased husk borders dividing further pink marbled panels from ice blue cartouches, maker's mark, charge and discharge marks of Julien Alaterre, Paris date letter for 1771, the left rim numbered: 913, in velvet-lined fitted fishskin case
8.3cm., 3¼in. wide
(2)

Condition Report:
The camaieu enamel panel on the bottom left on the lid and the grisaille panel on the back side (below the hinge) have been restored and re-fitted - a rather sophisticated way of not putting the enamel surface on the whole box at risk when re-firing, probably done in the early 19th century. Traces of restoration and light surface scratches to the lower part of the central panel on the base (slight discolouration)

"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Provenance:
Eugen Gutmann collection;

Fritz Gutmann collection

The first twentieth-century owner of this box, Dresden-born Eugen Gutmann (1840-1925), was the co-founder of the Dresdner Bank in 1872 and a highly important and passionate collector, most notably of Renaissance gold and silver work and of the decorative arts. The art historian Otto von Falke (1862-1942) produced a scholarly survey and catalogue of Gutmann’s collection in 1912, Die Kunstsammlung Eugen Gutmann (see fig. 2), which has become a key document in reconstructing Eugen Gutmann’s expansive collection and in which the present box is illustrated (see fig. 1).

Until 1914, Eugen’s youngest son Friedrich (“Fritz”, 1886-1944) was a Managing Director of the Dresdner Bank’s London branch, but at the outbreak of World War I he was interned as a so-called enemy alien by the British on the Isle of Man. At the end of hostilities with Germany, Fritz left England for Amsterdam, where he continued his work for the Dresdner Bank and settled with his wife Louise (née von Landau) in the country house Huize Bosbeek in Hemsteede, near Haarlem in northern Holland. In 1921, the entire collection had become part of a family trust to benefit Eugen’s six surviving children (his eldest son, Walter, having died in 1917) and Fritz was appointed to administer the trust. Fritz looked after his father’s collection on behalf of his family while also building up his own private collection of paintings, including important examples of Old Masters and Impressionist art, as well as Decorative Arts, among them the box in the present lot, of which Fritz most likely lost possession between May 1940 and February 1942.

The fate of the two collections and of Fritz and Louise Gutmann and their wider family, including Fritz’s brother Herbert (1879-1942), also a noted collector, is powerfully reconstructed and recounted in The Orpheus Clock (2015), written by Fritz’s grandson Simon Goodman. At the heart of that remarkable book is the narrative that although baptized into the Christian faith, the extended Gutmann family was persecuted by the National Socialists after 1933 because of their Jewish heritage. Some members of the family – such as Herbert, who fled to England and died there in 1942, losing the art collection that he had been forced to leave behind; Fritz and Louise’s daughter Lili, who went to Italy in 1938; and their son Bernard, who was already studying in England – managed to escape the Nazi terror by going abroad. Fritz and Louise were not so lucky: they were deported together from Hemsteede to Theresienstadt in 1943, where Fritz died in 1944 and from where Louise was taken to Auschwitz, where she was murdered.

Through the art dealer Karl Haberstock, the Nazis acquired by forced sale shortly before the couple were deported all of the Eugen Gutmann collection that remained in safekeeping at Huize Bosbeek. The paintings from Fritz’s own collection that he had not managed to save by sending them abroad for safekeeping were also looted. When Fritz and Louise’s children Lili and Bernard (who had anglicized his surname to Goodman) returned to their family home of after World War II, they found it completely stripped of every trace of Eugen’s and Fritz’s magnificent art collections. Exhaustive and tireless efforts were made by Bernard until his death in 1994 to locate and recover the works, but to no avail. After Bernard’s death, Simon Goodman took over his father’s life’s work and over the last twenty-five years he has managed to trace many pieces, including the present box: it was found at a regional auction house in Scandinavia and subsequently restituted to the Gutmann family by its private owners.