A parcel gilt Renaissance silver miniature basket
A parcel gilt Renaissance silver miniature basket
Small woven silver wire basket with mobile handles on an oval base. The smooth cover of corresponding design with a folding handle held by a silver wire and set with two small cast silver models of frogs and a lobster alternating with six gilded rosettes. H without handle 3.7; W 6; D 4.6 cm, weight 31 g.
Unmarked, attributed to Augsburg, around 1600.
Silver wire baskets like this one were extremely popular with princely collectors around 1600. The inventory of the Munich Kunstkammer from 1598 listed several "subtle baskets of silver wire". Two more have survived to this day in the treasury of the Esterhazy princes at Forchtenstein Castle. The Historical Museum in Basel preserves a basket very similar to ours (inv. no. 1905.251).
The origin of these small treasures is not known, but in June 1610, the Augsburg entrepreneur Philipp Hainhofer advertised a certain craft speciality of Augsburg to Duke Philipp II of Pomerania: "Here is a woman who makes very beautiful work of silver and gold wire (...) this woman makes beautiful baskets, bowls, lighters and other things of good drawn silver, in which there is no thread, but only silver.
We are talking about the "Schwertzin", an Augsburg wireworker named Schwarz, who six months later also wove the basket that found its place in the so-called Pomeranian art cabinet, which Hainhofer had built for Philip II at the beginning of the 17th century and filled with the most precious objets d'art.
Provenance
Private ownership.
Literature
For the basket in the Pomeranian art cabinet, see Mundt, Der Pommersche Kunstschrank, Munich 2009, p. 247. The example in the Basel Museum is illustrated in cat. Die grosse Kunstkammer, Bürgerliche Sammler und Sammlungen in Basel, Basel 2011, p. 218 no. 37. Cf. also two almost identical baskets attributed to Hans Jamnitzer of Nuremberg, illustrated in cat. Georg Laue, Tresor. Schatzkunst für die Kunstkammern Europas, Munich 2017, no. 32.
Bid on this lot
A parcel gilt Renaissance silver miniature basket
Small woven silver wire basket with mobile handles on an oval base. The smooth cover of corresponding design with a folding handle held by a silver wire and set with two small cast silver models of frogs and a lobster alternating with six gilded rosettes. H without handle 3.7; W 6; D 4.6 cm, weight 31 g.
Unmarked, attributed to Augsburg, around 1600.
Silver wire baskets like this one were extremely popular with princely collectors around 1600. The inventory of the Munich Kunstkammer from 1598 listed several "subtle baskets of silver wire". Two more have survived to this day in the treasury of the Esterhazy princes at Forchtenstein Castle. The Historical Museum in Basel preserves a basket very similar to ours (inv. no. 1905.251).
The origin of these small treasures is not known, but in June 1610, the Augsburg entrepreneur Philipp Hainhofer advertised a certain craft speciality of Augsburg to Duke Philipp II of Pomerania: "Here is a woman who makes very beautiful work of silver and gold wire (...) this woman makes beautiful baskets, bowls, lighters and other things of good drawn silver, in which there is no thread, but only silver.
We are talking about the "Schwertzin", an Augsburg wireworker named Schwarz, who six months later also wove the basket that found its place in the so-called Pomeranian art cabinet, which Hainhofer had built for Philip II at the beginning of the 17th century and filled with the most precious objets d'art.
Provenance
Private ownership.
Literature
For the basket in the Pomeranian art cabinet, see Mundt, Der Pommersche Kunstschrank, Munich 2009, p. 247. The example in the Basel Museum is illustrated in cat. Die grosse Kunstkammer, Bürgerliche Sammler und Sammlungen in Basel, Basel 2011, p. 218 no. 37. Cf. also two almost identical baskets attributed to Hans Jamnitzer of Nuremberg, illustrated in cat. Georg Laue, Tresor. Schatzkunst für die Kunstkammern Europas, Munich 2017, no. 32.
