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Lot Essay
Especially large in scale, this garniture is exemplary of the production of Renaissance revival works of art fashionable in the second half of the nineteenth century. Comprising a centrepiece surmounted by a bust of Zeus and pair of vases with finials depicting Athena and Artemis, this garniture of precious lapis lazuli mounted in enamelled silver is a tribute to renaissance objects of "Rothschild" splendour.
The vivid blue lapis lazuli is speckled with calcite and metallic gold pyrite recalling the stars in the night sky. The name comes from the Latin and ‘lashward’, the old Persian word for blue stone. The ancient Persians were the first to crush it to make ultramarine pigment. Mined for at least 6,500 years at the remote Kotcha Valley, Badakhshan, in present day north-eastern Afghanistan and southeastern Tajikistan, the source of lapis lazuli was at the cross road of Europe and it was carried to China, India, the ancient Egypt and later to the Greeks and Romans. Powdered it is the brightest and only natural blue pigment and scare, it was forever prized, and in the collections Louis XIV, out of more than 700 hardstone objects (350 jasper and agate vases, 384 rock crystal pieces), only 14 were made of lapis. By the nineteenth century the 'Russian mosaic’ technique had been perfected, which allowed larger vases to be created such as the huge vases in the State Hermitage.
As becoming of the historicism of the late 19th century, the composition of the design of the present garniture is drawn from various sources. The vases are of neo-classical shape, whereas the lapis-lazuli veneer recalls Italian work dating from the 16th century coupled with French appliqué enamelled silver-gilt mounts. A likely inspiration is a monumental lapis lazuli nef bought by Louis XIV in about 1673, exhibited during the mid-19th century, disseminated in an engraving by Jules Jacquemart (1837-1880) and copied in goldwork by Charles Duron in 1868.
Karl Rössler was born in 1854 in Niederpolitz, Bohemia, now called Dolní Police in the Czech Republic and became one of the foremost practitioners of Revivalist goldsmith's work operating in late nineteenth century Vienna. Rössler, together with Hermann Ratzersdorfer and Hermann Böhm, was one of a small number of jewellers and goldsmiths specialising in fine painted enamel and hardstone mounted prunkstücke objects in the Mannerist and Renaissance revival styles. Registered in business in 1890
Karl Rössler is recorded as a Juwelier und Goldarbeiter specialising in ‘Kunstgewerbliche Gegenstände in Gold und Silber. - Email und Antique-Imitation’.
The vivid blue lapis lazuli is speckled with calcite and metallic gold pyrite recalling the stars in the night sky. The name comes from the Latin and ‘lashward’, the old Persian word for blue stone. The ancient Persians were the first to crush it to make ultramarine pigment. Mined for at least 6,500 years at the remote Kotcha Valley, Badakhshan, in present day north-eastern Afghanistan and southeastern Tajikistan, the source of lapis lazuli was at the cross road of Europe and it was carried to China, India, the ancient Egypt and later to the Greeks and Romans. Powdered it is the brightest and only natural blue pigment and scare, it was forever prized, and in the collections Louis XIV, out of more than 700 hardstone objects (350 jasper and agate vases, 384 rock crystal pieces), only 14 were made of lapis. By the nineteenth century the 'Russian mosaic’ technique had been perfected, which allowed larger vases to be created such as the huge vases in the State Hermitage.
As becoming of the historicism of the late 19th century, the composition of the design of the present garniture is drawn from various sources. The vases are of neo-classical shape, whereas the lapis-lazuli veneer recalls Italian work dating from the 16th century coupled with French appliqué enamelled silver-gilt mounts. A likely inspiration is a monumental lapis lazuli nef bought by Louis XIV in about 1673, exhibited during the mid-19th century, disseminated in an engraving by Jules Jacquemart (1837-1880) and copied in goldwork by Charles Duron in 1868.
Karl Rössler was born in 1854 in Niederpolitz, Bohemia, now called Dolní Police in the Czech Republic and became one of the foremost practitioners of Revivalist goldsmith's work operating in late nineteenth century Vienna. Rössler, together with Hermann Ratzersdorfer and Hermann Böhm, was one of a small number of jewellers and goldsmiths specialising in fine painted enamel and hardstone mounted prunkstücke objects in the Mannerist and Renaissance revival styles. Registered in business in 1890
Karl Rössler is recorded as a Juwelier und Goldarbeiter specialising in ‘Kunstgewerbliche Gegenstände in Gold und Silber. - Email und Antique-Imitation’.