Product Description
Jaipur Enameled and Gem Set Rare Solid Gold Cup and Saucer c. mid-19th Century

JAIPUR, MUGHAL INDIA
Enameled and gem set gold Cup and Saucer c. mid-19th Century
High carat yellow gold (22-24 carat) cup and saucer set with a fine emerald, ruby and diamonds, the cup with a high foot with rounded sides and handle formed of two snakes intersecting at three points and biting the rim. The exterior is decorated with red, green, blue and white enamels with roundels containing combatant animals on a ground of floral sprays, the saucer with gently rounded sides decorated with lobed cartouches containing warriors combating tigers and birds, the underside with a series of oval panels containing peacocks and hummingbirds.
Provenance: a gift from a European diplomat in the 1930’s-40’s, and thence by descent.
Saucer: Dia: 5 1/4;
Cup: H: 2 3/4″ (with handle) x Dia: 2 5/8″
Similar animal decoration can be found in an epaulette attributed to Rajesthan, probably Jaipur, in the Khalili Collection (Pedro Moura Carvalho, Gems and Jewels of Mughal India, London, 2010, p. 225, no. 120. A related cup and saucer with similar animal depictions was sold at Christie’s (Islamic Art, Indian Miniatures, Rugs and Carpets, London, 21st October 1993, lot 350.
Jaipur Enameled and Gem Set Rare Solid Gold Cup and Saucer c. mid-19th Century
MELLERIO PARIS Italy/ France
Gyroscope cigarette box c.1930
French silver (950 silver standard) in a structural form of a gyroscope with a lever for an interior lifting mechanism, gilding
Marks: Mellerio Paris, 3776 D, head of Minerva French guarantee mark for 950/1000
H: 5 1/4″ x Dia: 4 1/4″
The renowned Mellerio family and their jewelry can be traced back to Lombardy, Italy as early as the 16th century. Some family members moved to Paris and became royal jewelers for Louis XIII. The revolutions of 1789 and 1848 interrupted their business and they moved to Madrid where they became the jewelers favored by Queen Isabel II. Later in the 19th century they returned to Paris where once again they prospered and participated in several international expositions including London (1862), Paris (1867, 1878 and 1900), and Vienna (1873). In the 20th century they exhibited at the renowned Paris 1925 Exposition des Arts Décoratifs in Paris and then in New York at the 1939 World’s Fair.
CHRISTOPHER DRESSER (1834-1904) UK
JAMES COUPER & SONS Glasgow, Scotland
“Clutha” vase c. 1890
Blown strawberry glass
This Dresser form appears as Linthorpe Pottery model no. 114.
Illustrated: Truth, Beauty, Power: Dr. Christopher Dresser 1834-1904,exhib. cat. Historical Design, Inc. (New York, 1998) p. 70.
Rare model.
H: 5 1/8” x W: 6”
PAUL HAUSTEIN (1880-1944) Germany
HERMANN BEHRND (b. 1849) SILBERWARENFABRIK (silver) Dresden, Germany
JAKAB RAPOPORT (enamelist) Budapest, Hungary
Inkwell c. 1900
Multicolored burgundy, purple, blue and green enamel with silver mounts, glass insert
Marks: Moon, crown, 800, HB (Hermann Behrnd mark)
Same model with variant mount illustrated: Deutsche Goldschmiede-Zeitung, n.d. (circa 1903-05), p. 23
For related works and more information see: Art Nouveau in Munich: Masters of Jugendstil, ed. Kathryn Bloom Hiesinger (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1988) pp. 67-69; Jugendstil in Dresden, Aufbruch in die Moderne, Gisela Haase et al., exh. cat. (Dresden: Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden; Wolfratshausen: Edition Minerva, 1999).
Dia: 7 1/4″ x H: 4 1/2″
GEORGE JAKOB HUNZINGER (1835-1898) Germany/ USA
Chair 1876
Yellow and blue painted elaborately turned wood, blue thread woven covered metal band mesh seat (original condition)
Marks: George Hunzinger Patent 1876
Illustrated: The Furniture of George Hunzinger, Invention and Innovation in Nineteenth-Century America, Barry R. Harwood (Brooklyn: Brooklyn Museum of Art, 1997) p.103.
H: 32″ x D: 17″ x W: 20″
GEORGE JAKOB HUNZINGER (1835-18989) USA
George Hunzinger emigrated in the 1850s from the Black Forest region of Germany where his family had worked as cabinetmakers since the 17th century. Settling in New York, he joined a community of 3,000 German furniture makers but soon distinguished himself as a maker of patent furniture and “fancy chairs”. Hunzinger’s innovative designs are often associated with the development of the Aesthetic Movement in America. By the 1870s, his chairs were sought after by many Americans as accent pieces for their parlors. The woven mesh or upholstery of these innovative chairs follows the original intention of the maker and the turned frame has an avant-garde, colorful and rather contemporary feeling painted in a combination of a rich ochre yellow and cobalt blue, a color combo that was highly prized for it’s eccentricity in Victorian America.