STONE TO SHARPEN with engraved brass frame. Parallelepiped of fine black sandstone, metamorphic rock with garnets, decorated on one side with a stemmed stem surrounded by a leafy branch; frame at one end decorated with foliage scrolls animated with...

STONE TO SHARPEN with engraved brass frame. Parallelepiped of fine black sandstone, metamorphic rock with garnets, decorated on one side with a stemmed stem surrounded by a leafy branch; frame at one end decorated with foliage scrolls animated with birds; belly chiselled with oak leaves and fitted with a ring.
Germanic countries, 1560/1610
Length with belly: 29 cm
(very slight accidents)
No other examples of this type of object have been found in public collections. It is of refined workmanship and must have belonged to a member of a reputable profession, such as barber-surgeons, some of whom held an important place in Renaissance society. The decoration of his mount, with the same foliage with small curved and hatched leaflets, can be seen on certain pieces of silverware from the Germanic world from Alsace to southern Germany: from 1560-1567 in Strasbourg, as shown on goblets belonging to the treasure of
Pouilly-sur-Meuse, until 1610 as seen on a mounted coconut bearing the Regensburg hallmark from the Rudolf-August Oetker collection.
Works consulted: Toulouse 2016 Exhibition, Treasures of 16th century German goldsmithing - Rudolf-August Oetker
Collection, Bemberg Foundation, cat. 124-125; M. Bimbenet-Privat et A. Kugel,
Chefs d'oeuvre d'orfevrerie allemande Renaissance et baroque, Dijon, 2017, pp 158-159 and pp 210-211. Automatically translated by DeepL. To see the original version, click here.