ANTIQUE OCTAGONAL PAPIER MACHE TEA CADDY ATTRIBUTED TO STOBWASSER

ANTIQUE OCTAGONAL PAPIER MACHE TEA CADDY ATTRIBUTED TO STOBWASSER

Circa 1820

Height: 3 inches / 7.6 cm
Width: 5½ inches / 13.9 cm
Depth: 4 inches / 10.2 cm
Stock number: GR7133/0121
Price: £4250

An antique, early 19th century, octagonal papier maché tea caddy attributed to Stobwasser. The caddy is painted to the top, front and sides, with a number of subjects. The top is beautifully painted with a classical scene of a group of people tying up a man whilst he is asleep. The front has a landscape scene of a girl and boy collecting grapes from the vines and enjoying a bunch of these, a building is in the background. Both sides are painted with flowers, flanked on either side by small panels painted with a variety of female figures. opening the lid reveals a single compartment with a floating lid with a small bone handle. There is no mark to confirm this is by Stobwasser, but the quality of the painting on the top of the caddy would suggest it was by them.

Johann Heinrich Stobwasser, b. 1740, under the patronage of the Duke of Brunswick, developed a new lacquer product. In 1772, the Stobwasser factory was opened in Berlin, producing mostly boxes, mostly in papier mache, with a few on copper.  They secured the finest artists executing a high quality of portraiture, landscape and genre paintings, and finishing the paintings with a high quality of varnish.  These are known as Brunswick (Braunschweig) or Stobwasser boxes. There were several generations of painters, and unless signed, it is often difficult to attribute them properly.  One of the characteristics appearing in Stobwasser boxes is not only the quality of painting, but the use of an iron red under-painting.