Casket thumbnail 1
Not currently on display at the V&A

Casket

1773-1775 (made)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

This casket was almost certainly part of a toilet service (from French 'toilette', a little cloth to wrap toiletries). A toilet service included a mirror, candlesticks, brushes, flasks and caskets of different sizes. This one, locked with a key (originally secured to the small ring on the foot) probably contained powder. The maker, Gottlieb Satzger (1709-1783) was the son of the goldsmith Philipp Jakob, and worked in Augsburg. His surviving works are mostly pieces for toilet services, and this is a particularly fine example of his skill. The curving forms, foliage ornament and sinuous, asymmetrical designs based on shell forms are typical of the 'rococo' style that was fashionable in the mid-eighteenth century.


Object details

Category
Object type
Parts
This object consists of 2 parts.

  • Casket
  • Key
Materials and techniques
Silver-gilt, embossed, chased and cast.
Brief description
Oval with bombé contours, silver-gilt, chased and embossed, a hunting scene (a man on horseback with two hounds corralling a stag into a net), fruit and flowers on the lid, embossed and applied roccoco ornament on the body and foot.
Physical description
Oval with bombé contours, silver-gilt, chased and embossed, a hunting scene, fruit and flowers on the lid, embossed and applied rococo ornament on the body and foot.
Dimensions
  • Base to highest point height: 17cm
  • Across the box width: 23cm
  • Across the base width: 18.5cm
  • Across the box, not including key depth: 17cm
  • Across the box, including key depth: 20cm
  • Across the base depth: 14cm
  • Box and key weight: 1184.5cm
Marks and inscriptions
  • Punched mark 'GS' in an oval-shaped punch, for goldsmith Gottlieb Satzger; pine-cone above the letter 'W' in a shaped punch for the town of Augsburg and the assay year 1773-75. The marks are accompanied by a zig-zag assay mark. (Both these marks punched on the base of the box. See Seling (1980), III, p. 26, no. 259 for the town and date mark; p. 385, no. 2373 for Satzger's mark.)
  • A crowned 'V' in a triangular-shaped punch, a Dutch tax mark for imported gold and silver in use between 1 November 1893 and 16 September 1905. (Punched once on the base, twice on the edge of the lid at the back of the box and once on the key. See Voet (1937), p. 29.)
  • A ?grasshopper or other insect in a rectangular punch, ?French tax mark for imports of small silver items, in use after 1838. (Punched on the edge of the lid.)
  • Three devices: a marquis' coronet, a bird above a crown (facing left) and a Turk's head (facing left). engraved (Engraved on the base of the box, 18th-19th century.)
Gallery label
5. TOILET BOX SOUTH GERMAN (Augsburg); mark for 1773-5 Silver-gilt, decorated with a hunting scene and ornamental motifs Mark of Gottlieb Satzger A toilet set by Satzger containing very similar boxes with the mark for 1757-9, made for Duke Carl Eugen of Wurtemberg, is now in the Wurtembergisches Landesmuseum in Stuttgart.(1970-1980)
Object history
Nothing is known of the original circumstances of the commission, though Satzger and his brother Johann Martin I produced many of the finest examples of this type of casket for wealthy and princely patrons. The (later) devices on the base remain unidentified. The casket was part of the large collection of objects (more than three thousand) lent to the Museum by the dealer and collector J. H. Fitzhenry. On his death in 1913, the Museum purchased the casket for £40.
Summary
This casket was almost certainly part of a toilet service (from French 'toilette', a little cloth to wrap toiletries). A toilet service included a mirror, candlesticks, brushes, flasks and caskets of different sizes. This one, locked with a key (originally secured to the small ring on the foot) probably contained powder. The maker, Gottlieb Satzger (1709-1783) was the son of the goldsmith Philipp Jakob, and worked in Augsburg. His surviving works are mostly pieces for toilet services, and this is a particularly fine example of his skill. The curving forms, foliage ornament and sinuous, asymmetrical designs based on shell forms are typical of the 'rococo' style that was fashionable in the mid-eighteenth century.
Bibliographic references
  • Seling, Helmut. Die Kunst der Augsburger Goldschmiede, 1529-1868: Meister, Marken, Werke. 3 vols. Munich: Beck, 1980. ISBN 3406057292 (set).
  • Voet, E. Nederlandsche Goud- en Zilvermerken, 1445-1935. 's-Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff, 1937.
  • Baudis, Macushla. Tea Parties at the Museum - The collector J H Fitzhenry and his relationship with the V&A. In: V&A Online Journal, 2 (2009)
  • Gruber, Alain. Silverware. New York: Rizzoli International, 1982. ISBN 0847804402
Collection
Accession number
M.137:1-1913

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Record createdJune 24, 2009
Record URL
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