A jewelled gold and hardstone ‘Steinkabinett’ bonbonniere, Johann Christian Neuber, Dresden, circa 1780-1785

Eklöh Collection, Hagen (Germany);

Van Ham, Cologne, 21 April 2007, lot 325;

Private European collection;

Galerie Kugel, Paris, 2015.

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Collection Eklöh, Hagen (Allemagne);

Van Ham, Cologne, 21 avril 2007, lot 325;

Collection privée européenne;

Galerie Kugel, Paris, 2015.

Johann Christian Neuber was born in Neuwernsdorf in the Ore mountains, and in 1752 he was apprenticed to Johann Friedrich Trechaon, a goldsmith of Swedish origin. Ten years later he became master goldsmith and burger of Dresden, succeeding Heinrich Taddel as director of the Grünes Gewölbe, which had been founded in 1723 as the luxurious treasure chamber of Augustus the Strong of Poland and Saxony to form an extensive collection of objets d’art from baroque to classicism. Before 1775 Neuber was also appointed Court Jeweller. One of his most famous objects in larger scale is a side table inlaid with 128 hardstones given by Frederick Augustus III, Elector of Saxony, to the Baron de Breteuil in 1780 to celebrate the peace of Teschen (now in the Musee du Louvre). Neuber advertised a wide range of small objects made from inlaid hardstones for ladies and gentlemen and these Galanteriewaren in their recognisable style were popular both at court and with the many visitors who came to Dresden as it rebuilt itself after the Seven Years’ War (1756-63). The great majority of precious objects from the Neuber workshops, such as the present box, are unsigned and unmarked, but are recognisable from the incomparable art seen in both the choice of hardstones and in their arrangement.

As his hardstone-inlaid objects show, Neuber was not only a visionary genius in terms of the aesthetics of these gold boxes, cane handles, carnet de bals etc., but he also had a strong scientific interest. Both lapidary and amateur scientist, Neuber had even rented several quarries to pursue his fascination for the hardstones found in local mines, which had been of economic importance to Saxony since the beginning of the eighteenth century. For many of his precious boxes, Neuber used a broad variety of locally-mined stones, such as agate from Schlottwitz or ‘starling’ stone from Chemnitz and sometimes he would even combine these with more exotic hardstones such as Egyptian porphyry or lapis lazuli from Afghanistan (for example in a magnificent hardstone gold box with an architectural perspective of galleried arches formed of agate, chrysophrase and bloodstone, surrounding a lapis lazuli table on porphyry ground, from La Collection Ribes I, Sotheby's Paris, 11 December 2019, lot 59).

The present lot belongs to the group of Steinkabinettstabatieren, Neuber’s speciality. These boxes could be oval, circular or octagonal and were inlaid with sometimes as many as 140 different Saxon polished hardstone specimens, with the aim of displaying nature's manifold mineral offerings at the same time as providing an outlet for the natural products of cash-poor Saxony. The present box contains 101 numbered specimens held smoothly en cloison within narrow gold cagework. The small numbers engraved in the gold mount above each hardstone would have allowed the owner of such a box to look up the exact name and place of origin of each specimen in an accompanying explanatory booklet, only a few of which survive today. While many boxes by Neuber are decorated with a portrait miniature, a hardstone or shell cameo, a Meissen porcelain plaque or a micromosaic, he choose different semi-precious and precious stones around a central pearl for the present lot, an elegant bijou of small size, as opposed to some of his larger tabatières with a completely different effect. Diamond, topas, amethyst etc. form the central ornament which is raised, as opposed to the inlaid hardstone specimens forming the ground. Four mineralogical cabinets centred with raised precious stone elements are recorded so far, including the present lot. Two bonbonnieres are also decorated with a border of simulated pearls around the lid - another technique in which Neuber specialised, for which foiled silver half beads were inset on the gold ground (Alexis Kugel, Gold, Jasper and Carnelian, Johann Christian Neuber at the Saxon Court, London, 2012, cat. no.s 154, 155, p. 363). Both of these, as well as the third example (also in private hands, Kugel, op. cit., no. 157), include a pearl in the centre of the lid as specimen no. 1. Although not a hardstone, pearls were not only of special interest to Johann Christian Neuber, but also a material with a long-standing history in Dresden, dating back to baroque pearls mounted as Perlfiguren collected by Augustus the Strong (1760-1733) for the treasure chambers in the Green Vaults.