A pear-shaped parcel-gilt silver cup and cover - Lot 27

A pear-shaped parcel-gilt silver cup and cover A pear-shaped parcel-gilt silver cup and cover Augsburg, 1616-1620 Master silversmith: Jeremias II Flicker (active 1610 - 1647) H. 23 cm; wt 205 g. Hallmarks: Augsburg Pyr: 1616-1620 (Seling 2007, no. 240) IF: Jeremias II Flicker (Seling 2007, no. 1246 b). Provenance : Sotheby's Zurich, June 8, 1999, lot 293 ; Dr Itsván Heller, his sale : Sotheby's London, Dr Heller's Lexicon, December 4, 2012, lot 44 ; Galerie Neuse, Bremen; Private collection, Paris. Exhibition: Europäische Goldschmiedearbeiten 1560-1860, Couven-Museum, Aachen, 2003, n°12. Bibliography : I. Heller, Europäische Goldschmiedearbeiten 1560-1860, exhibition catalog: Couven-Museum, Aachen, 2003, pp. 29-31, no. 12. Comparative bibliography : H. Seling, Die Augsburger Gold- und Silberschmiede 1529 - 1868, Munich, 2007. K. Tebbe, U. Timann et al, Nürnberger Goldschmiedekunst 1541-1868, Nuremberg, 2007. F. Payer Kunsthandel, Zürich, Neuerwerbungen, TEFAF Maastricht catalog, 2010. P. d'Arschot & E. Basso, Orfèvrerie européenne, Brussels, 2020. This covered bowl is naturalistically crafted to resemble a gilded silver pear. It rests on a silver stem engraved with veins and adorned with three leaves in gilded, engraved and cut silver. The base is formed by a large, three-lobed leaf, engraved and gilded. The lid is topped by a silver catch representing a bouquet of flowers. Condition: good German goldsmiths also produced bowls in the shape of pineapples, apples or bunches of grapes. These stem from a tradition of naturalistic goblets that emerged at the end of the Gothic period (circa 1480-1520). Engraved models of bowls in the shape of fruits, pears in particular, were produced for goldsmiths by artists such as Albrecht Dürer, Hans Brosamer and Virgil Solis, to name but a few. Other pear-shaped bowls, or "birnpokal", quite similar to ours, are known, made by silversmiths such as Marx Merzenbach in Augsburg (cf. Victoria & Albert Museum, London, inv. 1908-1898; d'Arschot, Basso, pp. 32-33), or Reinhold Rülh in Nuremberg (cf. F. Payer; K. Tebbe, U. Timann et al, vol. II, p. 173, fig. 142).