An unusual set of four German silver wine coolers, Johann Heinrich Stolzheise, Buckeburg, to the design of Count Ernst zu Münster, circa 1815

each formed as a bucket engraved with pales and applied with bands, supported by three ribbon-tied thyrsi entwined with grapevine, triangular bases engraved with contemporary arms, fitted with metal plates in the bases.

Count Ernst Friedrich Herbert zu Münster (1766-1839) and his wife Wilhelmine von Schaumburg-Lippe, whom he married in 1814, to their son
Count Georg Herbert zu Münster (1820-1902) 
S.J. Phillips, London, 1996

all bases slightly bowed upwards, scratches to interiors of coolersn especially around bolts to thyrsi 1. old repair to seam of bucket, ding to base plate 2. good condition 3. old repair to seam of bucket, some vine leaves missing 4. some scratches to baseplate, starting to split along one incised line Otherwise good condition, large scale and unusual model from a rare town
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These wine coolers were part of the dowry of Wilhelmine zu Schaumburg-Lippe, who married Count Ernst zu Münster, Hanoverian Minister to London, during the Congress of Vienna.  The form, probably unique, was designed by her husband and made by a local goldsmith who supplied the princely family.

CHERISHED POSSESSIONS

The coolers are engraved with the accollé arms of Wilhelmine Charlotte, Countess of Münster, born Countess of Schaumburg-Lippe (1783–1858), and her husband Ernst Friedrich Herbert, Count of Münster (1766–1839).  They are almost certainly the set of four coolers listed in his last will and testament, 16^th October 1856.  To her eldest son, Georg Herbert, she left first the silver-gilt vase and jewel-set portrait presented by his godfather, George IV, on his christening in 1821, and a necklace inherited from her own mother.  Next,
As well I leave to my son my 4 bottle bowls, for which his father did the design and which I had commissioned for my dowry.
(„Auch vermache ich meinem Sohne meine 4 Bouteillenkümpe, wozu sein Vater selbst die Zeichnung gemacht hat und die ich zu meiner Aussteuer habe machen lassen).[1]

As this entry shows, the Countess assigned a highly symbolic value to the wine coolers. They reflected her husband's strong aesthetic sense and his enthusiasm for classical antiquity during their years together.

THE PATRONS

From the beginning Count Münster and Wilhelmine von Schaumburg-Lippe had artistic interests in common.  In her husband's biography, which the Countess wrote for their children,[2] she especially mentioned the drawing lessons given by his friend the famous painter Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein, where they met and got to know one another more closely.  Tischbein had left Naples in 1799 to escape the French invasion and had founded a drawing-academy for young ladies (Zeichenaccademie für junge Damen) in Hannover facilitated by Count Münster, who visited the courses as a "famulus," in his word.

Wilhelmine Charlotte was the second daughter of Philipp Ernst zu Schaumburg-Lippe (1723–1787) and his wife Juliane Wilhelmine Luise, born Landgravin of Hessen-Philippsthal (1761–1799, Regent from 1787).  At the time of the lessons, she was living in Hannover with her younger sister Karoline, at the house of their guardian Johann Ludwig Graf von Wallmoden-Gimborn. This situation enabled her to be part of Hanover society, where she made friends with members of the Münster family including Ernst, recently returned from Italy.

Ernst von Münster was born into a family closely connected to the court, as his father Georg Hermann Heinrich von Mönster zu Surenburg (1721-1773)[3] was Major-domo to the Prince-Bishop of Osnabrück Friedrich August, second son of George III. After his father's death, Ernst's mother, Eleonore, encouraged the artistic interests already spurred in his early youth by drawing lessons. At the age of twelve Ernst was educated in the spirit of the enlightenment at the Philanthropinum in Dessau and found a father figure in Prince Leopold III Friedrich Franz of Anhalt-Dessau. The Prince introduced him to the planning of the English garden in Wörlitz, which he created with the architect Erdmannsdorff under the influence of Winckelmann.

From 1781 to 1784 Ernst prepared for the civil service at the Ritterakademie in Lüneburg and spent another four years studying law at the Georg-August-University in Göttingen; there he met the three youngest sons of George III, pupils from 1786.  Developing his interest in the arts, Ernst attended lectures by the classical philologist and founder of the modern archeology and classical studies Christian Gottlob Heyne.  There he learned to interpret the art of the ancient world in its historical, literary, mythological and religious contexts.  He studied antique sculpture from Heyne's plaster cast collection, and painting and architecture from reproductions and prints collected by Johann Dominik Fiorillo, one of the first scholars to be named a professor of art history.

After entering the Hanoverian Civil Service as Auditor in 1788, then Hof- und Kanzleirat in 1791 at the Domänenkammer, in 1793 the newly-designated Count Münster received an order from George III to accompany Prince Augustus from Italy back home to England.  After having stayed with the Royal family in Windsor for four months, the two re-embarked on another Grand Tour lasting five years, a voyage which – in the Grand Tour tradition – clearly shaped Ernst's understanding of the arts.

Their trip encompassed Rome and the Campagna, followed by Naples, Portici, Herculaneum and Pompeii, where Count Münster fell victim to the lure of the antique, the Italian noble collections, and the beauty of the countryside.  In addition to diplomatic connections, he came in close contact with the German artists' colony of the Deutschrömer in Rome, and befriended particularly the painters Friedrich Rehberg, Johann Christian Reinhart, Friedrich Bury (with whom he painted and copied), and Angelica Kauffmann.  In Naples it was Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein, whose drawing academy he would later attend in Hanover, and Jakob Philipp Hackert.  At the court of Ferdinand IV he met Christoph Heinrich Kniep, who was also represented in the collections of Sir William Hamilton.  The Count's estate at Derneburg would later display 46 paintings he brought back from Italy.[4]

Count Münster deepened his understanding of archeology and art history through lessons with Aloys Hirt and Johann Georg Zoëga, who accompanied the inspection of ruins and an excavation in Ostia Antica financed by Prince Augustus.  The Count's personal collection later included a head of Hercules and a bas-relief from a sarcophagus which may have come from this site.  With Zoëga the Count shared an interest in antique mythology, exploring the origin of religions, and collaborating on the preparation of catalogues of ancient sculptures.

Returned to the Domänenkammer in Hanover, the Count started his political career by serving as George III's ambassador to St. Petersburg from 1801 to 1804.  His son later wrote that his father, "became a highly esteemed member of the diplomatic corps, and was united by the most friendly ties to many of the cleverest men of the time."[5]  In 1805 George III recalled him to serve as Minister for Hanoverian Affairs in London.  His son described the position as "Prime Minister for Hanover," and wrote:
He resided nearly continually at Court, and possessed the King's most unlimited confidence, and afterwards that of his successor, both as Prince Regent and as George IV. He was on the most intimate terms with the English statesmen of the day, and a foreigner has seldom had conceded to him more political esteem and confidence than he enjoyed. During the time of the Prussian and French occupation of Hanover he remained in England, constantly occupied in his endeavours to assist the struggles for freedom of the German nation. He was in Paris in 1814, and went in September of that year to Vienna as representative of Hanover for the Prince Regent of England.[6]

Even before the Count's departure for Vienna, the Prince Regent granted him in August 1814 an endowment of 6000 Taler together with the title of a Hereditary Land Marshal (Erblandmarschall; his marshal's baton is shown on the portrait by Eduard Stroehling).  His ruler's confidence would be rewarded, for in Vienna the Count successfully represented the interests of Hanover, resulting in the elevation of the Electorate to a Kingdom and a considerable extension of its territories. 

MARRIAGE AND THE WINE COOLERS

At the Congress he again met Wilhelmine von Schaumburg-Lippe, who with her sister Karoline had accompanied their brother Prince Georg Wilhelm. Although named a ruling Prince in 1807, Georg Wilhelm's was still a small territory of only 25,000 inhabitants; in his minority it had been invaded by the Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel, who only withdrew after a ruling from the Court in Vienna.  The powerful Hanoverian Minister, with the ear of the ruler of Great Britain, must have been an appealing ally in the uncertain world of the Congress of Vienna.   After a rapid courtship, Wilhelmine and Ernst were married in Vienna on 7^th November 1814.

In Wilhelmine's marriage contract, issued 17 February 1815 in Vienna, a financial settlement befitting her rank is specified, but no further details as to plate or appointments.  On 15^th June of the same year the couple left Vienna for Frankfurt, arriving in Aschaffenburg the day after Napoleon's abdication following the battle of Waterloo.  Count Münster wage and the Wine Coolersent on to Brussels, then to London where he developed the bylaws of the Guelphic Order, of which he was to be chancellor, and to Paris to prepare for the Treaty of Paris.  His bride was not feeling well and remained at Eltville on the Rhine.  They were reunited at the end of August, then visited Göttingen in early September.

On September 13^th the couple went to the former Cistercian monastery of Derneburg, in Hildesheim.  Count Münster had chosen this estate as his endowment, given by the Prince Regent before the Congress; it had only formally been given in March, and now the Count and Countess inspected their new property.  They had a brief visit to Hanover, then were back at Derneberg September 27^th to 29^th to meet Wilhelmine's brother Prince Georg Wilhelm for hunting.  After one more day in Derneburg, the Countess went to her hometown of Bückeburg, to take care of her affairs.

Since this was her first return to her hometown after her wedding in November 1814 it can be assumed that Wilhelmine now ordered her dowry, bringing her husband's design for wine coolers to the Bückeburg silversmith Johan Heinrich Stolzheise.  No documents have been found about the provision of silver as part of the dowry, but Wilhelmine's younger sister Karoline would later write to her relative, the Landgravin Sophie von Hessen-Philippsthal-Barchfeld, confirming that Stolzheise had delivered pieces to her brother, Georg Wilhelm.[7]

With his classical knowledge, Count Münster chose to support his coolers on a thyrsus, the staff carried by Bacchus and his followers.  In addition to paying tribute to the god of wine on a wine cooler, the thyrsus – a stalk of fennel topped by a pine cone – also represents the fusion of farm and forest, an appropriate reference as the newlyweds prepared to make their own Arcadia at Derneburg.  Like drawing at the beginning of their friendship, the creation of this estate became the Count and Countess's common interest during their marriage.  In this context, the wine coolers mark the beginning of the "happiest years" of Countess Wilhelmine's life, with a "fortunate relationship" between herself and her husband as stated in the introduction of his biography – and underscores why these were among her most precious possessions forty years later.

Despite being part of her dowry, the bases of the coolers are engraved with the arms of both bride and groom.  They had been married for a year at this point, though, and the arms appear identically on the marriage contract itself.[8]

LATER LIFE

Despite their affection for Derneberg, where the agricultural estate was being remodeled as an ideal landscape, most of the couple's time was spend in London.  They entertained at their home at 32 Grosvenor Place, and evenings there appear in contemporary letters and memoirs.  George IV had Sir Thomas Lawrence paint the Count as part of his series of the European leaders who defeated Napoleon,[9] and in 1822 the king served as godfather for their eldest son.  The couple continued to collect art, buying works by Correggio and Guido Reni on the market but also receiving works as presents from the Royal family and a Holbein and Velazquez from the Royal private secretary, Sir Herbert Taylor.  In Hanover the Count purchased 15 works from the Wallmoden collection, including Tintoretto, Rubens and Poussin-Dughet.  By the end of his life, the Count's inventory included paintings in oil, watercolours, drawings in sepia and chalk, engravings and lithographs, paintings belonging to his daughters painted by himself, antique busts and statues, and cut stones, altogether 192 art objects.

Count Georg Herbert Münster would write of his father "although considered in England a " High Tory," he was in reality, as all true aristocrats are, very liberal-minded... He had, as the faithful servant of his king, done all in his power to make Hanover a great kingdom."[10]  Count Ernst left the German Chancery in London in 1831, after the death of George IV.  After his departure the importance of the position dwindled due to the approaching separation of the crowns of Britain and Hanover.  The Count died in May 1839, less than a year after the coronation of Queen Victoria cemented the separation of the two kingdoms he had worked so hard to connect.  His wife lived until 1858, when per her will, the coolers passed to their eldest son, Georg; in family tradition, he served for much of the late 19^th century as the German ambassador to London.

We would like to thank Andrea Huber for her research on this lot.

[1] Niedersächsisches Landesarchiv – Hauptstaatsarchiv Hannover, Nachlaß der Grafen/Fürsten Münster von Derneburg, Dep. 110, E Nr. 1.02
[2] Wilhelmine von Münster, Das Leben des Grafen Münster (1766-1839). Aufzeichnungen seiner Gemahlin Gräfin Wilhelmine, geb. Fürstin zu Schaumburg-Lippe, Hrsg. Carl Haase (Veröffentlichungen der Niedersächsischen Archivverwaltung, Bd. 43), Göttingen 1985
[3] The name Mönster was used till 1792.
[4] For the Count's collecting and aesthetic development, see Nicolas Strube  "Die Derneburger Kunstsammlungen des Grafen Münster" in Ernst Friedrich Herbert Graf zu Münster. Staatsmann und Kunstfreund 1760-1839. (Ein Kolloquium aus Anlaß seines 150. Todestages in der ehemaligen Orangerie zu Derneburg am 8. Dezember 1989). Hildesheim 1991, pp. 81-104, and by the same author, Ästhetische Lebenskultur nach klassischen Mustern. Der hannoversche Staatsminister Ernst Friedrich Herbert Graf zu Münster im Lichte seiner Kunstinteressen. Veröffentlichungen der Historischen Kommission für Niedersachsen und Bremen, Bd. 11, Hannover 1992.
[5]  George Herbert, Count Munster. Political Sketches of the State of Europe, from 1814-1867. Edinburgh, 1868
[6] Ibid.
[7] NdsStA Bückeburg, F 1 A XXXV 27
[8] On January 23^rd Count Münster had paid 150 fl. for the seal of his wife (NLA-HStAH, Dep. 110 A Nr. 505).
[9]  RCIN 404939
[10] Munster 1868