A chased gold snuff box, probably London, circa 1740

Gold has always played an important role in cultures around the globe since the very first recorded appearance of the precious metal in Spanish caves inhabited during the late Paleolithic period, circa 40,000 BC. The human desire to form precious gold into ritual objects, symbols of power such as regalia, as a means to honour certain deities or simply to embellish the human physiognomy, also dates back several millenia. Different techniques, such as piercing, embossing and filigree work can, for example, be found in Byzantine art. The same applies to freehand chasing, a technique which has subsequently been revived across the centuries, such as by Benvenuto Cellini during the Renaissance.

Freehand chasing means that the craftsman is only using a hammer and punches to work the gold, having drawn the design onto the surface first. The reverse of the surface is then placed on a small stake, and the outside is struck with a fine hammer to be moulded around the stake, thus creating a high relief on the outside of the metal. It is therefore not surprising that anyone wanting to become a chaser ‘ought to have good eyes: No Strength is required; but he must have a good Genius for Drawing, and ought to be early learned the Principles of that Art’, as The London Tradesman stated in 1747 (Richard Edgcumbe, The Art of the Gold Chaser in eighteenth-century London, Oxford, 2000, p. 18). In the 18^th century, the English capital had become the most important centre of production for gold work, benefitting from its importance for the watch industry and with an extensive retail and export network reaching to the Far East (see for example Ian White and Julia Clarke, The Majesty of the Chinese-Market Watch, London, 2019, p. 69).

The opportunities for a profound education in drawing that was so essential to the profession of a chaser, however, were somewhat limited in England in the first half of the 18^th century (Edgcumbe, op. cit, p. 16). This partially explains the rather large number of immigrant gold chasers in London, such as the famous George Michael Moser, John Valentine Haidt, Augustin Heckel, and others who had completed parts of their education in Geneva, Berlin or Augsburg and were attracted by London’s fame for objects made of gold (Edgcumbe, op. cit). Traditionally, these not only included watch cases, but also other objects of vertu such as snuff boxes, scent bottles, toothpick holders and etuis. Many of these more elaborate fashionable novelties, at the time called ‘toys’ were sold by influential retailers to wealthy visitors of the most elegant shops in London and spa towns such as Bath (see Vanessa Brett, Bertrand’s Toyshop in Bath, Luxury Retailing 1685-1765, Bath, 2014).