Box, German (Nuremburg), 1559

Box of beechwood, painted on the lid with the subject of David and Bathsheba, and round the panels with flowers and devices. The box is fitted with a brass lock (and original key), and a sliding front panel, when removed, reveals three drawers below three lidded compartments surrounding a rectangular well; all the interior show surfaces are painted with flowers and fruits within ornamental borders, on a red-purple ground, the interior of the lid with a fashionably dressed man and woman shown seated, holding the twin handles of a vase from which spring a heart, clasped hands with a coronet, and flowers; the floor of the interior well with a heart and clasped hands under a coronet. The interior of the drawers and compartments painted red. Fitted with original brass hinges, lock and key. Dated 1559

Bought for £10 from A Pickert, Nuremberg. Art Referee's report, 43253, November 1871 (Sir M.D.Wyatt "AD. 1559. good, looks all right."

Display history: Between 1872 and 1924 uncertain. It was displayed in 1925 (room 1), and also in 1964 (room 74). By 1986 it was in store.
It is not included in the major publication Ancient and Modern Furniture & Woodwork in the South Kensington Museum, described with an introduction by John Hungerford Pollen (London, 1874).


See also: Clive Wainwright, edited for publication by Charlotte Gere, The making of the South Kensington Museum III. Collecting abroad, in Journal of the History of Collections 14 no. 1 (2002) pp.45-61;
p.59 notes visit of Cole's visit to Pickert in Nuremberg, 13 and 18 Sept 1871, and further purchases in December 1872 for £190. 10s.

See Renate Gold, 'Reconstruction and Analysis of Bismuth Painting', in Painted Wood: History and Conservation, proceedings of a symposium organized by the Wooden Artifacts Group of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works and the Foundation of the AIC, held at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Virginia (USA), 11-14 November 1994 (The Getty Conservation Institute, Los Angeles), pp.166-78

'In southern Germany and Switzerland, an unusual form of painting was developed in the sixteenth century: the technique of bismuth painting. The technique is found mostly on small decorative caskets and beech (fagus) boxes, and occasionally on wooden plates and altars. The lids of the boxes show figurative scenes from the Old and New Testaments with couples dressed in traditional sixteenth-century clothing. The remaining surface areas are filled with schematic leaf ornamentation or dense designs of flowers, fruits, and symbols of betrothal and marriage. A number of the boxes that have been examined have inscriptions, and approximately forty are dated. The first boxes appear to have been produced about 1490; however, it was not until 1613 that the governing council of the city of Nuremberg formed an official guild of bismuth painters.' p.166

Bismuth is a brittle metal ranging from silver-white to a reddish hue, which is found in the cobalt and nickel mines of Saxony, England and Bolivia, among others. The metal can be pulverized, and oxidizes under humid conditions, changing its warm silvery and blue-red irridescent hue to a dark grey, matte finish.

Microchemical analysis shows that a ground of two to four layers of glue and chalk was applied to the beech which had been soaked with glue. Bismuth podwer combined with gum arabic is applied to the chalk ground, polished with an agate and usually coated with a transparent layer. Paint layers applied over the bismuth were generally coated with a second varnish. One or both of the varnish layers may have been stained, perhaps to appear gold. Various coloured pigments were used including azurite, vermillion, saturn red, lead white and copper green. There is evidence that a gilded or silvered ground for the painting was also used alongside bismuth on the same boxes.

Nuremburg or Wildbad (Black Forest)

This box dated 1559 is painted in the style of Nuremburg/Black Forest work. The distinctive metallic ground was created using bismuth (a lead-grey lustrous material that looks silvery when polished), which gave the painters their name - wismutmalerei, from at least 1511. Inside the box are various painted drawers behind the sliding front.

Various similar boxes survive decorated with flowers, fruits and symbols of romantic love. Some also depict Biblical scenes, in this example the story of David and Bathsheba (recorded in 2 Samuel chapter 11) is coupled with admonitory verses. Such a scene adds a moral and religious dimension in an object that was probably given to mark a courtship or betrothal.

575-1872