Art-Nouveau container in form of a graceful house,
AUCTION 83 |
Thursday, June 20th,
2019 at 1:00pm
Printed Books, Manuscripts, Autograph Letters, Holy Land Maps, Ceremonial Objects, Fine & Graphic Art
Lot 208
DANISH PEWTER CHARITY CONTAINER
Art-Nouveau container in form of a graceful house,
Copenhagen, c. 1900
Est: $6,000 - $8,000
With stylized depictions of doorway on front and back, the roof engraved with bands resembling tiles and set with coin slot. Danish inscriptions across lintel: “To the Society for the Care of the Sick.” Engraved sides: “Praiseworthy is he who looks after the poor” (Psalms 41:2) in Hebrew and Danish. On base, removable disc marked with makers’ initials. 4 x 2.5 inches (11 x 7 cm).
This unusual charity box was created to replace the older containers of an elite Bikur Cholim Society “Tiferes Jedidim” established in Copenhagen in 1821.
A limited number of some 60 or so were manufactured. Two Jewish Danish artists cooperated in the design: Siegfried Wagner (1878-1952) and Mogens Ballin (1872-1914).
For another example of this fine charity container, see Mirjam Gelfer-Jorgensen, Danish Jewish Art (1999) pp. 311-13.
See also EJ Vol. III: cols. 596, 612 and “Mogens Ballin’s Workstatt” in: Dekorativ Kust (Munich, April, 1902) pp. 244-50; and Weilbach’s Kunsternerleksikon (Denmark, 1947) Vol. I, pp. 59-60 (Ballin) and Vol. III, 458-59 (Wagner).
About the Society Tiferes Jedidim and the replacement of their charity boxes by those created by Ballin, see Sygeplejeselskabet for det Mosaiske Troessamfund i Kobenhavn, 1821-1921, especially p. 9.