A silver-gilt mounted ruby glass casting bottle - Lot 48

A silver-gilt mounted ruby glass casting bottle A silver-gilt mounted ruby glass casting bottle Glass: South Germany, (probably Munich), early 18th century Mounting: Augsburg, 1707-1711; master silversmith: Elias Adam (active 1703-1745) Marks: Augsburg Pyr: 1685-1687 (Seling, no. 1330) EA: Elias Adam (Seling, n°1964) H. 18.8 cm; wt 295 g. Provenance: Christie's, London, May 20, 2021, lot 114 ; Private collection, France. Comparative bibliography: S. Baumgärtner, Gläser Antike, Mittelalter, neuere Zeit - Katalog der Glassammlung Brauser, Museum der Stadt Regensburg, Karlsruhe, 1977. B. Klesse et al, Ein rheinischer Silberschatz - Schmuck und Gerät aus Privatbesitz, exhibition catalog: Kunstgewerbemuseum, Cologne, 1980. B. Klesse, European Glass from 1500-1800: The Ernesto Wolf Collection, Vienna, 1987. H. Seling, Die Augsburger Gold- und Silberschmiede 1529 - 1868, Munich, 2007. T. Schroder, Renaissance and Baroque Silver, Mounted Porcelain and Ruby Glass from the Zilkha Collection, London, 2012. The ruby glass piriform sprinkler is engraved with birds and fruit trophies with broad foliate scrolls. The lower part of the body is decorated with molded ribs. The gilded silver mounting consists of a circular base edged with gadroons and a plain ring at the neck onto which a gadrooned stopper is screwed. The latter is surmounted by an equally gadrooned top and opens onto a sprinkling grid. Condition: good The engraved decoration of fruit and bird trophies on this bottle, as well as its ribbed base, are characteristic of ruby glass production in southern Germany (cf. Schroder, commentary p. 324, no. 94; see lot 41 in this catalog). A similar sprinkler, also mounted by Elias Adam, is in the Art Institute of Chicago (inv. 1927.1253). Another, mounted by Martin Breuer, is in the Zilkha collection (cf. Schroder, no. 95; Christie's, New York, Global Treasury: The Life and Collection of Selim & Mary Zilkha, February 6, 2025, lots 130). Although slightly different in shape, we can also cite the pyriform flasks with unstamped mounts, such as the one in the Brauser collection at the Museum der Stadt Regensburg (inv. K (B) 1960/160; cf. Baumgärtner, no. 168), the one in the Wolf collection (cf. Klesse, no. 80) and the one from the 1980 Cologne exhibition (cf. Klesse, no. 418), whose ribbed base and decoration can be related to our saupoudreuse.