An Eccentric and Spectacular 17th/ 18th Century Century Silver Filigree Casket

 17th Century Silver Filigree Casket with a Lion Couchant on the Lid.

With an Applied Gilded Hapsburg Double Headed Eagle.

Representing the union of the Hapsburgs and the Spanish Monarchy.

Size 21.5 x 15 x 10 cms.

The double headed eagle holding a sword and sceptre in one talon and an orb in the other.

A pair of Crowned Rampant Lions on each door.

The lid is hinged.

The plaited silver filigree on this object is most unusual if not unique

The most remarkable and truly eccentric filigree case, the interior with 6 graduated drawers.

The bosses in the centre of the two flowers appear on the Toilet mirror of about 1750 (see below).

Dutch Museums.

https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11840/76223

Museums Inventory number TM 229 -117

 

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The top photograph shows the casket in the centre of the cabinet in the museum in the top photograph

taken prior to 1934

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The German Toilet Mirror of about 1750.

with a detail of the flower bosses.

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A Photograph of a Prayer book Cover from the MAK Archives.

https://sammlung.mak.at/en/collection_online?id=collect-192388

Included here to illustrate the use of the bosses on the two objects above

see my post

https://antiqueeuropeanfiligree.blogspot.com/2023/02/photographs-of-silver-filigree-objects.html

Fotografie eines Gebetsbucheinbandes mit Silberfiligran und Wappen aus dem 18. Jahrhundert (given title), Insgesamt 271 Fotografien von Objekten der Ausstellung Alter Gold- und Silberschmiedearbeiten im k. k. Österr. Museum 1907. (title addition)

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17th / 18th Century Silver Filigree Casket,

with Hapsburg Double Headed Eagle and Cypher.

With Dealers Soa Roque of Lisbon and Paris.

http://www.antiguidadessaoroque.com/

https://www.masterart.com/artworks/8716/silver-filigree-casket

Described on the website as 1600-1750. Origin: India, Goa, Philippines?

Definitely not Goa - no filigree was manufactured in Goa.

Dimensions: 7.11 x 16.51 x 13.97 cm.

Provenance: Private collection

Literature: Catalogue "Jóias da Carreira da Índia", Museu do Oriente, Lisboa, 2014 (p.135-136, fig. 41.

Exhibitions: "Jóias da Carreira da Índia", Museu do Oriente, Lisboa, 2014.

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The only pieces that I have come across so far to equal the eccentricity of this piece are the pair of "Wild men " Figures in the Herzog Anton Museum, Braunschweig.

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A Silver Filigree Mounted Nautilus Shell in the Kremlin Museums.

17th Century German?

https://collectiononline.kreml.ru/en/entity/OBJECT/60178?page=2&query=filigree&index=87

Possibly by the same craftsman who made the cabinet and the wild men.

Dimensions - height: 32,0 cm.

Belonged to Tsarevich Alexey Petrovich (1690 - 1718).

Published - Lords of the Ocean. Treasures of the Portuguese Empire of the 16th-18th centuries.

Museum number ДК-185.

Exhibitions - Peter the Great. Collector, Scholar, Artist 28.11.2019 - 08.03.2020

'Guardians of Time. Conservation at the Moscow Kremlin Museums' 10.07.2019 - 13.10 2019.