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Lot 22*
A Silesian engraved goblet attributed to Samuel Mattern, Hermsdorf, circa 1730
26 November 2014, 10:30 GMT
London, New Bond StreetSold for £8,125 inc. premium
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A Silesian engraved goblet attributed to Samuel Mattern, Hermsdorf, circa 1730
The tapering ogee bowl cut at the base in the manner of rock crystal, decorated with an elaborate scrollwork cartouche containing a formal garden scene with a palace in the background, a well-dressed lady and gentleman seated beside a tree stump in the foreground, the lady playing a lute and wearing a fancy hat and a low-cut dress, the gentleman stroking the head of a dog, the collar of the dog engraved with the initials SFM, the reverse decorated with a parakeet pecking at a stylised basket of fruit and flowers, two children playing instruments to the right and another two children playing to the left, set on a faceted inverted baluster stem between collars, over a conical foot with a formal stiff-leaf border and rosette-cut base, 19.7cm high
Footnotes
Provenance:
Sold at Fischer, Heilbronn, 17 October 1998, lot 467
Sold at Fischer, Heilbronn, 16 October 2004, lot 257
The only glass engraver recorded as working in Silesia in the first half of the 18th century who may fit the initials SFM is Samuel Mattern, who may have used the middle initial F, although there do not appear to be any other examples signed by Samuel Mattern or bearing the same initials. In 1732 and 1736 Mattern signed the register in the chapel on top of the Schneekoppe, the highest peak in the Giant Mountains (Riesengebirge), with the note 'Samuel Mattern, Stein- und Glasschleifer in Ihro Excell. Graf Schaffgottshens Schleifmühle in Hermsdorf' (Samuel Mattern, stone- and glass engraver in His Excellence Count Schaffgotsch's grinding mill in Hermsdorf).
Engraved scenes of children at play are not uncommon on Silesian glasses from the 1730s. Glasses with such scenes, formerly in the Ernesto Wolf Collection, are illustrated by Brigitte Klesse and Hans Mayr, European Glass from 1500-1800 (1987), cats. 111-113. Similar goblets depicting couples playing instruments are illustrated by Brigitte Klesse and Axel von Saldern, 500 Jahre Glaskunst (1978), p. 182, cat. 120, and by Strasser and Spiegl (1989), pp. 263-264, cat. 124; the lady in the latter example plays a lute and is engraved in a comparable way to the lady depicted on the present lot. Another Silesian footed beaker decorated with a lady playing a lute is illustrated by Brigitte Klesse, Glassammlung Helfried Krug, Vol. I (1965), pp. 223-225, cat. 228.