This auction has ended. View lot details
You may also be interested in
Lot 455
A Rare South German Miniature Casket (Mankästche)Early 17th Century, From the Workshop Of Michel Or Conradt Mann Of Augsburg And Nuremberg
1 December 2009, 14:00 GMT
London, KnightsbridgeSold for £6,480 inc. premium
Looking for a similar item?
Our Arms and Armour specialists can help you find a similar item at an auction or via a private sale.
Find your local specialistA Rare South German Miniature Casket (Mankästche)
Early 17th Century, From the Workshop Of Michel Or Conradt Mann Of Augsburg And Nuremberg
Early 17th Century, From the Workshop Of Michel Or Conradt Mann Of Augsburg And Nuremberg
Of gilt copper and brass, the front and back finely engraved with male and female portrait busts in early 17th-century costume within arches, the sides each with a putto, the bottom with a pair of rosettes, and the flat top with a male and female standing figure en suite with the busts on the front and back, engraved gilt strips, some of them pierced, mainly retained by small iron screws, the central pivoting strip on the lid made to conceal the key-hole, characteristic blued iron lock shooting four bolts and with filed decoration, four small gilt bun-shaped feet, bow-shaped drop handle of brass with baluster mouldings, and iron key, probably the original, the interior lined with green velvet (2)
10 cm. wide
10 cm. wide
Footnotes
This belongs to a group of caskets of closely similar design and decoration, many of which bear the signature of either Michel or Conradt Mann. Nothing appears to be recorded about the latter, but the similarity of his signed work to that of Michel's suggests that they worked together. Michel was born in Augsburg and trained in Nuremberg, where he died circa 1630
The Mann workshops also produced miniature guns, pistols and cannons. See Claude Blair, The James A. de Rothschild Collection at Waddesdon Manor, Arms, Armour and Base-Metalwork, 1974, pp. 482-487, figs. 219-221