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Lot 222*
WILHELM SCHMIDT: AN EXCEPTIONAL BOULDER OPAL, GEM-SET AND HARDSTONE BUST, CIRCA 1890
Amended
1 December 2022, 11:00 GMT
London, New Bond Street£70,000 - £100,000
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Jennifer Tonkin
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Charlotte Glyde
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WILHELM SCHMIDT: AN EXCEPTIONAL BOULDER OPAL, GEM-SET AND HARDSTONE BUST, CIRCA 1890
Portraying Mars, the Roman god of War, in Ajax helmet surmounted by a vulture, sculpted from a single boulder opal, his bearded face and neck and the vulture's legs and bald head carved in dark brown ironstone matrix resembling deeply patinated bronze, the winged helmet and the vulture's plumage highlighted by utilising the thin layers of precious opal within the host rock, the opal with additional intricately engraved feather and scroll detail, the helmet and vulture's eyes inlaid with brilliant-cut diamonds, the vulture wearing a ropetwist collar, backed in engraved yellow gold. The torso clad in engraved fish-scale gold armour, the draped folds of the toga rendered in carved chalcedony, with rose-cut diamond fastening. Mounted on a silver circular collar with gold acanthus leaf scrollwork and set with three cabochon turquoises and a single cabochon emerald. The whole on a rectangular tapered, polished hardstone pedestal of exquisite purple and green colouration. Each face of the pedestal in-set with an oval cameo withing gold ropetwist frame; an idealised Roman goddess in sardonyx at the front, and three labradorite cameos to the sides and back variously depicting Minerva, Cleopatra and Isis, on a green hardstone base, signed W.Schmidt on reverse of toga, repair in chalcedony toga, three diamonds deficient, lengths: 31 cm total, the bust 14 cm, the plinth 14 cm,
Footnotes
Provenance
Herbert Maxwell Stuart (1842-1921)
The date of purchase by Maxwell Stuart is unknown but the sale is mentioned in a typed transcript of a letter of reminiscences, written in 1926, by Wilhelm Schmidt to his friend and business associate Dr George Frederick Kunz of Tiffany, "Bust of Mars, in opal matrix, size 5 inches, face and neck in brown matrix, Ajax helmet in opal of finest quality...Purchased by Mr Herbert Maxwell Stuart of Scarthingwell Hall, Tadcaster." Schmidt continues, "Mr Herbert Maxwell Stuart, the lineal descendant of the Stuarts and owner of their estates in Scotland and Yorkshire was a purchaser of many of my works. He was greatly interested in precious stones."
Maxwell Stuart amassed a large collection of unmounted specimen gems, including the largest facetted topaz, known as the Maxwell Stuart Topaz. Part of his collection was sold after his death at Christie's on 22 June 1921, including several opal cameos, unattributed in the catalogue but most likely carved by Schmidt. This bust was not part of the sale. It was purchased, unattributed, as a beautiful object of vertu by the family who currently own it.
This highly important signed opal carving by the prodigiously gifted Victorian cameo engraver Wilhelm Schmidt (1845 – 1938) represents a uniquely important example of Schmidt's pioneering opal carving technique, the scale of ambition setting it apart from his other known works. Until recently, it was believed Schmidt never signed his work and this is the only fully signed piece so far traced, underscoring its exceptional importance.
Wilhelm Schmidt was born in Idar Oberstein, the European centre of the mineral, gemstone and lapidary trades, where large deposits of carnelian and other agates, found during the 16th - 17th centuries, gave rise to an illustrious gem engraving industry. This instilled in Schmidt 'a great love of art in every expression' and despite being born with an eye defect, he conceived a passion for gem engraving from an early age.
In 1860, at the age of fifteen, he was sent to Paris, as an apprentice in the lapidary studio of his cousin, Louis Purper. The head of the studio was the cameo-cutter, Arsène, whom the young Schmidt came to admire greatly and who trained him in the waning neo-classical tradition.
Schmidt stood out as a remarkable talent, winning prizes for drawing and draughtsmanship, but by the time he graduated, the voracious thirst for cameos and intaglios by connoisseur collectors and students of antiquity was rapidly drying up. Schmidt's cousin closed his studio to pursue a more profitable career as a pearl dealer, whilst Wilhelm struggled on for several tough years trying to make ends meet as a gem engraver. He found work by cutting portrait cameos and an early commission was from an elderly American, Mr Fox, whom Schmidt described as "practically the only important dealer in precious stones in New York", for onyx cameos of General Grant and Abraham Lincoln, heroes of the American Civil War.
At the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War, Schmidt was expelled from Paris and returned home in 1869. Much to his relief, he was not called up to fight against his adopted country, or Napoleon III, to whom he referred patriotically as 'mon Empereur'. He remembered in old age, "I shall always gratefully remember France, as the country where I learnt and studied the art of precious stone engraving. Therein I found pleasure, happiness, and contentment throughout my long life."
In 1870, he emigrated for the second time, setting up in London an engraving business trading alongside his gem-importer brother Louis. London directories from 1870 list 'Schmidt and Nourick, importers of precious stones' at 59 Hatton Garden, and by 1872, the firm was styled 'Louis Schmidt', below whose name appeared 'Schmidt, W., Cameo Engraver'. In the same way he took his French identity to heart whilst living in Paris, Schmidt became thoroughly anglicised, calling himself William, speaking excellent English and proudly becoming a naturalised citizen in 1887.
London, like Paris, had a rapidly dwindling pool of specialist patrons of the glyptic arts but Schmidt successfully navigated the macro-economics of the jewellery industry by adapting to new tastes and by pioneering innovative techniques. He carved and sold numerous cameos, for use in ornamental jewellery, to the best London jewellery firms working in the fashionable Archaeological Style, including John Brogden, Guiliano, Castellani, Child & Child and Edwin Streeter, as well as to leading jewellers in America such as Marcus and Tiffany. Although these carvings were unsigned and the retailers did not credit the engraver in their finished jewels, this and his portrait cameo business, afforded him enough money to live comfortably with his second wife, six daughters and one stepson.
Schmidt's gemstone-dealing brother supplied him with a plentiful source of unusual and rare specimens with which he could work. His wide repertoire of materials included labradorite, malachite, tourmaline, crocidolite, moonstone, zircon, tourmaline, malachite, lapis lazuli, sapphire, amethyst, topaz and, most unusual of all, opal that was to become his trademark.
In 1874, Schmidt invented a distinctive and challenging new technique of carving opal to create striking three-dimensional sculptures through its contrasting layers. To quote the late scholar Gertrud Seidmann, a connoisseur of Schmidt's work, to whom we are indebted for much of our knowledge of him:
"Opal cameos, if rare, were not unknown (in the 19th century) but Schmidt had invented a novel technique: instead of carving the whole cameo from precious opal, he used blanks with a thin layer of precious opal overlaying the matrix, in the same way in which the contrasted layers of agates were traditionally used to set off the background."
In 1878, London jeweller John Brogden unveiled a necklace set with opal cameos - carved by Schmidt - at the Paris Exhibition. The necklace caused a sensation and was awarded a gold medal and high praise from the press. The Telegraph described it as a 'wonder of wonders'. However, only Brogden was credited and awarded the Cross of the Legion of Honour; Schmidt was not mentioned and did not share in the public acclaim.
Opals are perilous to carve. Formed from hardened silica gel with an unusually high-water content, they can crack and spoil if the temperature conditions fluctuate or if handled by unskilled hands. It is even more astounding to realise that Schmidt, who was able to work this fragile gem with such dexterity, sensitivity, and delicacy, did so using only rudimentary, manually operated equipment and with the use of only one good eye.
Schmidt first worked with opals from Honduras and Hungary but continued to perfect his technique by carving a new source of opal, first discovered in Queensland, Australia, in the last quarter of the 19th century. The material from this region, known as boulder opal, displays veins of vivid green and blue precious opal running through the deep chocolate-brown ironstone host rock, known as the matrix.
As early as 1876, Schmidt had begun selling his unusual carved specimens to Mr Reeks and Mr Rudler, curators of the Museum of Practical Geology. In 1880-1, the museum acquired his first endeavour in carving opal matrix; a small exotic bird in Queensland opal on an oval ironstone matrix ground that is today in the collection of the Natural History Museum in London. The museum would prove to be a useful source for customers, who sent many collectors to visit him at his premises in Hatton Garden. Whilst a great deal of Schmidt's work was acquired anonymously, often unsigned and unattributed, Schmidt was certainly not overlooked in his own lifetime, garnering international appreciation and enjoying a loyal following of wealthy connoisseur collectors including:
Henry Willet - brewer and a founder of the Brighton Museum
John Ruskin - art critic and Victorian polymath
Abraham Booth - timber merchant who owned at least 50 cameos by Schmidt, many in labradorite
Herbert Maxwell-Stuart – distinguished collector of precious stones and owner of this bust
Dr George Frederick Kunz - America's premier mineralogist and Vice President of Tiffany
Dr Archibald Billing – eminent physician and important collector of neo-classical cameos
In 1887, he was awarded the highest medal at the annual Turner's Company Exhibition at the Mansion House in the City of London, where he presented a rock crystal bust of Christ, recently acquired by the Victoria & Albert Museum (Accession no. A.5-2017). Schmidt's carving so impressed the Lord Mayor that he ranked it on the same level as ancient Greek sculpture. The same year, Schmidt was admitted as a Freeman of the Turners' Company and granted Freedom of the City of London by redemption, which elicited such pride that he printed it on his company letterhead.
This rock crystal bust of Christ, on display at the V&A, was one of a handful of hardstone sculptures executed by Schmidt. Gertrud Seidmann, in her seminal article on Schmidt, written in 1988, noted that he practised the genre occasionally yet with extravagant employment of his skills.
In Schmidt's letter of reminiscences (handwritten in 1926 and surviving as a typed record in the possession of the family) to his friend and business associate, Dr George Frederick Kunz of Tiffany, he classified his most eminent works as a bust of Minerva, in white cornelian, a bust of Britannia in aquamarine of "emerald colour standing on a bloodstone base", a "bust of Ajax in green tourmaline, helmet formed by baroque pearl standing on large topaz pedestal, purchased by you Dr Kunz for Messrs Tiffany & Co, during one of your visits to London" and this bust of Mars in opal matrix. Schmidt describes this bust accurately, down to the measurements, except that the helmet is, we believe, erroneously recorded as "surmounted by a gold dragon". It is worth noting the letter was written approximately 40 years after the piece was carved, when Schmidt was in old age, living for a time in New York, and he either misremembers or, more likely, the typist has introduced the error when transcribing the original letter.
The 1899 'Irish Arts & Crafts Society Catalogue of the Second Exhibition' records another bust, of Victory, in amethyst on a pedestal with four stone cameos, with a price tag of £165. Schmidt's smaller, less elaborate busts were sold for between £3 - £20 so this relatively huge sum indicates how importantly his serious work was regarded by connoisseur collectors for what must have been many months of painstaking work. The amethyst bust of Victory was later owned by King Farouk of Egypt and was sold by Sotheby's in 1954.
Schmidt's expansion of engraving to larger, more ambitious sculptural objects and unusual materials took the art form beyond the classical styles, referencing the jewelled lapidary busts of the Renaissance, and though Schmidt secured a steady income by taking commissions and selling anonymously to jewellery retailers, the busts do not appear to have been commissioned.
These elaborate and impressive sculptures are examples of Schmidt's unbridled creativity and ambitious experimentation; a testament to his mastery of this difficult craft and his capacity to push the boundaries of the challenging materials in which he worked. This opal matrix bust of Mars can surely be considered the master craftsman's 'Magnum Opus' and we hope the sale of this magnificent carving will bring a wider appreciation of the work of the enterprising and entrepreneurial master cameo engraver, Wilhelm (William) Schmidt.
Bibliography:
Seidmann, Gertrud., Wilhelm Schmidt: 'The Last Neo-Classical Gem-Engraver', London: Source Title: Apollo CXXVIII No. 317 (July-1988)
'Illustrated Catalogue of Gems, Cameos & Amber Collected by A. Booth', (Gloucester, published before 1923)
Hansen, R. 'Two Interesting Cameos in the Natural History Museum, London' The Journal of Gemmology, Vol. 35, no. 8, pp. 706
Irish Arts & Crafts Society of Ireland, 'Catalogue of the Second Exhibition' (1899)
'The palace collections of Egypt. Catalogue of the highly important collection of works of art in precious materials', (Sotheby's: London: 1954)
Various papers in the possession of the descendants of Wilhelm Schmidt
Works by Wilhelm Schmidt in public collections:
'Queen Victoria', Rock crystal bust on agate plinth with four hardstone cameos, circa 1899 – Royal Collection [Exhibit no. 9054]
'Our Lord', Rock crystal bust on agate plinth with four hardstone cameos, circa 1887 – Victoria and Albert Museum [Exhibit no. A.5-2017]
Archaeological Revival parure by John Brogden, set with labradorite cameos by Wilhelm Schmidt - The British Museum [Exhibit no. 1999,0105.1]
Various carved cameos and sculptures - National History Museum
Saleroom notices
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