BY REINHOLD VASTERS, AACHEN, CIRCA 1870

Reinhold Vasters (1827-1909) was born near Aachen and entered his mark as a goldsmith in that city in 1853. He was very shortly thereafter appointed restorer at the Aachen Cathedral Treasury. His early work seems to have concentrated on church silver which he marked, very straight-forwardly, R. VASTERS in a rectangular punch. In addition, there are two recorded Renaissance style jewels from this period which bear an RV conjoined mark struck on a small applied plaque on the reverse, which are almost certainly by Vasters. By the late 1860s he seems to have given up making new church silver and turned to working mainly on unmarked secular pieces in the Gothic and Renaissance styles. It is particularly interesting that, in 1865, the Cathedral authorities ordered an early 16th Century pax in the Treasury to be altered to a clasp. According to Stephen Beissel, writing in 1909, a dozen or so copies were made at that time, one of which found its way into the collection of Frédéric Spitzer in Paris. The supposition must be that Vasters was responsible for making these clasps. The designs for the whole, or part, of at least twenty other pieces in the Spitzer collection are found among the Vasters' drawings.
From this period on, Vasters seems to have become increasingly wealthy and by 1880 was publicly exhibiting works of art from his personal collection. Indeed, the 1902 Düsseldorf exhibition, 'Kunsthistorische Ausstellung', included no fewer than 500 pieces owned by Vasters. As Edmund Renard observed at the time of the exhibition "Among the smaller private collections that of the Aachen goldsmith Reinhold Vasters offers a highly characteristic picture - throughout one notes the specialist and technician. Several decades of cooperation with the greatest genius among nineteenth-century collectors, Spitzer has had a distinct influence on the formation of the collection." Predictably, the highlights of Vasters' collection included mounted Milanese rock crystal and enameled jewels.

Frédéric Spitzer (1815-1890) owned an antique business in Aachen from about 1850 till at least 1868 and it is during this period that he almost certainly encountered the Cathedral goldsmith. In 1871 Spitzer gave the Cathedral a silver-gilt clasp which was part old and part brand new and in all probability was made-up by Vasters. In 1852 Spitzer purchased a large house in Paris on the rue de Villejust, which became known as the Musée Spitzer. Here he amassed a huge collection of Renaissance and Renaissance-style gold and silverwork, along with other works of art of every description. Sometimes the works were 'improved' as was the case with the six Aldobrandini tazze which he owned. It appears that he commissioned a goldsmith, presumably Vasters, to melt the original plain detachable fluted feet of the tazze and replace them with more elaborate examples which seemed, to contemporary taste at least, to be more truly Renaissance in spirit.
Preferring to be known as an amateur, Spitzer was clearly a brilliant dealer operating in the most elegant social circles in Paris. As the introduction to the Spitzer sale held in Paris between April 17 to June 16, 1893 noted, "pendant douze ans (1878-1890), l'hôtel de la rue de Villejust a été le pèlerinage de toute l'aristocratie européenne, aristocratie de naissance, de talent ou de fortune."