Estimate

1.000 - 1.200

Session 1

6 June 2023

Hammer Price

Description

Silver
Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, Holy Roman Empire
Augsburg, 1611-1632
With no Portuguese marks

Diam.: 4 cm
19g

Category

Silver

Three schraubtaler

An interesting group of three 17th century schraubtalers (“screw-thaler”), or schraub-medaille (“screw-medallion”), possibly made in the German city of Augsburg, a major artistic production centre during the Holy Roman Empire (962-1806) period. Located some 60 Km away from Munich, the city attracted, throughout the 16th century, numerous artists, and artisans from all over Europe, due to its importance as a trading centre dynamized by such agents as the Fugger and the Welser, renowned merchants and bankers’ families.
The schraubtalers are utilitarian objects of German tradition, popularized from the 16th to the 19th centuries in the Holy Roman Empire (962-1806) and, for the first half of the 20th century, in the German Reich (1871-1918). These objects testify to the artistic ability of silver coinage and are usually comprised of two reichstalers milled in their interior and joined by a screwing mechanism.
Their similarity to a reichstaler coin is due to their only purpose of hiding secrets in their interior. As such, their small hidden treasures are a gateway to the daily whims of 17th century German society, and effectively reveal the “moods of their times”. Schraubtalers inner hollow compartment could encase water-coloured miniatures of subjects relating to private life and entertainment, political and religious occurrences, secret messages, or love mementoes, amongst others. Due to the fragility and ephemerous nature of their contents, many extant schraubtalers are unfortunately empty.
In the 17th century it became popular to place selenite sheets, known as glimmerbildchen, a glass like material that allowed for the overlapping of various images that would create a variety of effects. One of the examples that we are bringing up for sale at auction allows for dressing a female figure in a variety of costumes, through the overlapping of variously decorated selenite sheets.
Schraubtalers can be found in various private collections, the Alfred Ritleng (1829-1905) collection standing out from amongst others, as well as in public collections such as those at the Historisches Museum Hannover (Inv. VM 041027), or at the Schweizerisches Nationalmuseum (Inv. M 15230 – Col.18266).

João Belo

Literature:
FORRER, Robert - Les antiquités, les tableaux et les objets d'art de la collection Alfred Ritleng à Strasbourg, Strasbourg : "Revue Alsacienne illustrée", 1906, pág. 73