A Jewelled Gold and Enamel Snuff Box, Possibly François-Claude Théremin with Frères Jordan, Berlin, Circa 1785
Auction Closed
June 18, 05:01 PM GMT
Estimate
12,000 - 18,000 USD
Lot Details
Description
oval, the lid now centered with an oval enamel portrait miniature of King Louis XIV of France (1638-1715), probably by Jean Petitot, dressed as a Roman emperor with a scarlet cloak fastened at the shoulder with a faceted gemstone clasp above the gold epaulette, long curly brown wig, in a gold locket frame and further brightly-enameled oval frame, surrounded by plum-colored translucent enamel over wavy and pellet engine-turning within a border of white enamel bead strands alternating with rose-cut diamond-set quatrefoils on a sablé ground, the sides with further bead-hung chased dividers, the base similarly decorated, maker's marks and wreath mark, the left rim numbered: 242 in white enamel
Length 3 1/4 in.
8.4 cm
The Marquess of Bath, Longleat House;
sold Christie's London, 13 June 2002, lot 461
The Théremin brothers were born in Prussia, sons of a Huguenot pastor. The elder, François-Claude, trained in Magdeburg, Paris and Hanau as a goldsmith and enameler before working in Berlin with his future father-in-law, Jean-Guillaume Krüger, who is today perhaps best known for his designs for the magnificent table snuff boxes for Frederick The Great of Prussia.
The younger by 18 years, Pierre-Etienne Théremin was apprenticed to his brother and also trained as an engraver in Geneva before the two set up business in St Petersburg in 1793. They were rapidly successful, perhaps in part through Pierre-Etienne's marriage to Marianne Duval, daughter of the leading foreign jeweler and retailer in St Petersburg. The brothers supplied the Imperial court with gold boxes, jewelry and other objects of vertu. Stylistically the Théremin's boxes are closer to Geneva work of the same date than to contemporary boxes produced in Hanau or St Petersburg (Julia Clarke, 'Swiss Snuff Boxes 1785-1835,' in: Haydn Williams, Enamels of the World, The Khalili Collections, London, 2009, p. 305).
Their short but apparently highly lucrative career in Russia was over by 1802.
For further details and comments about boxes by the brothers, see also Olga Kostiuk, 'The Théremin Brothers and their work in the Hermitage', Problems with the Development of Foreign Art, St Petersburg, 1993, pp. 12-20.
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