411 - Johann I Mittnacht

Johann I Mittnacht An important Augsburg parcel-gilt silver rosewater bowl Round bowl with a recessed centre; the broad rim with a twisted overlay of acanthus scrolls with vine leaves and fruit; interspersed with eight oval beaded medallions featuring repoussé and finely chased heads of Roman emperors. The edge with a scrolling fluted ornament; the base of the bowl with corresponding decoration, with a circular stand for a jug in the centre. The underside engraved with a commemorative inscription: “D. Joannes Van Velden Episcopus Ruremundanus in consecratione Sua a. D. Cardinale de Momorency Dusseldorpii in Ecclesia ad S. Andream die 17 Augusti 1794 peracta me usus est.” (Johannes Van Velde, Bishop of Roermond, used me at his consecration, which was performed by Cardinal de Montmorency in St Andrew’s Church in Düsseldorf on 17 August 1794.) Diameter 51.4 cm, weight 2,254 g. Marks of Johann I Mittnacht, 1697 - 1699. The dedication on the underside of the bowl refers to a significant historical event. On 17 August 1794, the Belgian Baron Johannes Baptist Van Velde (1743-1824) was consecrated in Düsseldorf’s Church of St Andrew as the 14th and last bishop of the old Diocese of Roermond. Already appointed in November 1793 and confirmed in office in February 1794, he was forced to leave Roermond abruptly in July 1794, fleeing the French Revolutionary Army. Having refused to swear an oath of allegiance to the French Republic, he was compelled to flee to nearby Düsseldorf, which at that time was under Bavarian-Palatinate rule and offered refuge to the Catholic bishop. In St Andrew’s, the Düsseldorf court church, he received his official episcopal consecration on 17 August 1794 from the French Cardinal Louis-Joseph de Montmorency-Laval, who had likewise sought refuge in exile in Düsseldorf. Seven years later, under considerable pressure from the French, the Diocese of Roermond was dissolved, and on 24 November 1801 Van Velde was forced to resign as bishop. This bowl apparently entered the collection of the Grand Dukes of Saxony at the Stadtschloss in Weimar during the course of the 19th century, where Marc Rosenberg catalogued it in 1891 in his publication 17 Blatt aus dem grossherzoglichen sächsischen Silberschatz im Schlosse zu Weimar as ‘Das Augsburger Gießbecken’ and published an illustration of it. In the photograph, the bowl is still shown together with the associated jug. Following the abdication of Grand Duke Wilhelm Ernst of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach in 1918, parts of the art collections were confiscated, while others remained in the family and were, over the following decades, partly sold by the heirs of the House. Provenance From an old private collection in Hesse. Literature Ill. in Marc Rosenberg (ed.), 17 Blatt aus dem Grossherzoglichen Silberschatz im Schloss zu Weimar, Karlsruhe, 1891, unpag. For a ewer and basin by Mittnacht in the collection of the Maximilian Museum Augsburg see also cat. Maximilian Museum, Augsburgs Schatzkammer, Augsburg 2016, p. 104.