A SMALL ENAMELED GOLD AND HARDSTONE MIRROR
A SMALL ENAMELED GOLD AND HARDSTONE MIRROR
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A SMALL ENAMELED GOLD AND HARDSTONE MIRROR

THE BACK PANEL, EARLY 17TH CENTURY; THE FRAME, BY ALFRED ANDRE, PARIS, 19TH CENTURY

Details
A SMALL ENAMELED GOLD AND HARDSTONE MIRROR
THE BACK PANEL, EARLY 17TH CENTURY; THE FRAME, BY ALFRED ANDRE, PARIS, 19TH CENTURY
Octagonal shape, the gold frame enameled with red cabochons emulating rubies and green trefoil on white enameled ground and applied on the outside with enameled scrolls, the back panel reverse painted with grotesques figuring two parrots flanking a vase of flowers underneath a canopy and framed by scrolls and exotic birds on gold ground, with suspension ring and later mirror
3 1⁄8 in. (8 cm.) wide
2 oz. 6 dwt. (71 gr.) gross weight
Provenance
Baron Édouard de Rothschild (1868-1949), in Fumoir de la rue de Rivoli, hôtel Saint-Florentin, Paris.
Confiscated from the above by the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg following the Nazi occupation of France in May 1940 (ERR no. R 2466).
Recovered by the Monuments Fine Arts and Archives Section from the Altaussee salt mines, Austria (no. 1170),
and transferred to the Munich Central Collecting Point, 28 June 1945 (MCCP no. 1371/72).
Returned to France on 11 July 1946 and restituted to the Rothschild family.
By descent to the present owners.
Sale room notice
Please note that previous cataloguing for this lot stated that the reverse painted back panel was under rock crystal. It is in fact under glass.

Lot Essay

The back panel is decorated with grotesques in the early Italian style with a whispy ornamental arrangements of arabesques, interlaced garlands with exotic birds and fantastic animal figures set out in a symmetrical pattern around an architectural framework. Such designs fashionable in ancient Rome, especially as fresco wall decoration and floor mosaics were revived in Italy at the beginning of the 16th century. The style was subsequently adopted across Europe through engravings passing into the European artistic repertory of the 16th century, from Spain to Poland gradually losing that initial lightness to be more densely filled than the airy well-spaced style used by the Romans and Raphael.
In this instance, the design borrows from Florentine designs, as promoted by engravers such as the Dutch Claes Janszoon Visscher (1586-1652) or by the German Mathais Beitler (ca. 1582–1616).
The frame was later added by Alfred Andre and the mold is illustrated in A. Kugel, R. Distelberger and M.Bimbenet‑Privat, Joyaux Renaissance. Une splendeur retrouvée, Florence, 2000, pl. XXIV.f.

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