An enamelled copper snuffbox with merchant navy scenes

An enamelled copper snuffbox with merchant navy scenes

With regilt copper mountings. Slightly bombé cartouche-form box with hinged lid. Painted to all sides with "kauffahrtei" scenes; to the front a narrow field between scrollwork bands and a broader field to the reverse; a marine scene to the underside; exotic merchant navy scenes with camels framed by reeds to the inside and outside of the lid. Wear to the lower edges, cracks, and a small loss to the edge of the lid. 3.4 cm x 8.5 cm x 7.2 cm.
Attributed to Christian Friedrich Herold in Meissen, ca. 1737 - 44.

Christian Friedrich Herold (1700 - 1779) was born in Berlin, where he originally worked as an enamel painter before beginning his apprenticeship as a porcelain painter under Hoeroldt in the Meissen manufactory. There he soon established himself as one of the leading painters of figures and landscapes, and presumably expanded the manufactory's repertoire with his own shipping scenes. In the course of his research, Rainer Rückert discovered several disciplinary entries in Herold's files from 1737 onwards as he had been moonlighting as a "hausmaler", painting scenes on enamel boxes with stolen puce pigment from the manufactory (on 13th February and 14th March 1744). He was even punished with a four-week jail sentence in March 1744. Researchers have not yet been able to establish definitively whether he developed his puce painting and gilding techniques in Berlin and brought them to Meissen, or vice versa.

Literature

For more information on Christian Friedrich Herold cf.: Rückert, Biographische Daten, Munich 1990, p. 156 f.