Description
Museal Renaissance miniature basket Silver, partially gilded. On an oval stand, the conical body woven from finely drawn silver wire with opposing movable handles. The flat hinged lid is worked accordingly - and set with two small cast frogs and a lobster between six gilded rosettes around a hinged handle held by silver wire. Unmarked. H without handle 3.7; W 6; D 4.6 cm, weight 31 g. Probably Augsburg, around 1600. Silver wire baskets like this one were extremely popular with princely collectors around 1600. The inventory of the Munich Kunstkammer from 1598 listed several "subtle baskets of silver wire". Two more have survived to this day in the treasury of the Esterhazy princes at Forchtenstein Castle. The Historical Museum in Basel has a basket very similar to ours (inv. no. 1905.251). The origin of these small treasures is not known, but in June 1610 the Augsburg entrepreneur Philipp Hainhofer advertised a certain Augsburg specialty to Duke Philipp II of Pomerania: "Here is a woman who makes very beautiful work of silver and gold (...) this woman makes beautiful baskets, bowls, lighters and other things of good silver, in which there is no thread, but only silver." We are talking about the "Schwertzin", an Augsburg silver worker named Schwarz, who six months later also wove the basket that found its place in the so-called Pomeranian art cabinet, which Hainhofer had built for Philip II at the beginning of the 17th century and filled with the most precious Kunstkammer objects. Provenance Private ownership. Literature For the basket in the Pomeranian art cabinet, see Mundt, Der Pommersche Kunstschrank, Munich 2009, p. 247. The example in the Basel Museum is illustrated in Cat. Die grosse Kunstkammer, Bürgerliche Sammler und Sammlungen in Basel, Basel 2011, p. 218 no. 37. Cf. also two almost identical baskets attributed to Hans Jamnitzer of Nuremberg, illustrated in Cat. Georg Laue, Tresor. Treasure Art for the Kunstkammern of Europe, Munich 2017, no. 32.
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Museal Renaissance miniature basket Silver, partially gilded. On an oval stand, the conical body woven from finely drawn silver wire with opposing movable handles. The flat hinged lid is worked accordingly - and set with two small cast frogs and a lobster between six gilded rosettes around a hinged handle held by silver wire. Unmarked. H without handle 3.7; W 6; D 4.6 cm, weight 31 g. Probably Augsburg, around 1600. Silver wire baskets like this one were extremely popular with princely collectors around 1600. The inventory of the Munich Kunstkammer from 1598 listed several "subtle baskets of silver wire". Two more have survived to this day in the treasury of the Esterhazy princes at Forchtenstein Castle. The Historical Museum in Basel has a basket very similar to ours (inv. no. 1905.251). The origin of these small treasures is not known, but in June 1610 the Augsburg entrepreneur Philipp Hainhofer advertised a certain Augsburg specialty to Duke Philipp II of Pomerania: "Here is a woman who makes very beautiful work of silver and gold (...) this woman makes beautiful baskets, bowls, lighters and other things of good silver, in which there is no thread, but only silver." We are talking about the "Schwertzin", an Augsburg silver worker named Schwarz, who six months later also wove the basket that found its place in the so-called Pomeranian art cabinet, which Hainhofer had built for Philip II at the beginning of the 17th century and filled with the most precious Kunstkammer objects. Provenance Private ownership. Literature For the basket in the Pomeranian art cabinet, see Mundt, Der Pommersche Kunstschrank, Munich 2009, p. 247. The example in the Basel Museum is illustrated in Cat. Die grosse Kunstkammer, Bürgerliche Sammler und Sammlungen in Basel, Basel 2011, p. 218 no. 37. Cf. also two almost identical baskets attributed to Hans Jamnitzer of Nuremberg, illustrated in Cat. Georg Laue, Tresor. Treasure Art for the Kunstkammern of Europe, Munich 2017, no. 32.
