Important Modern & Vintage Timepieces
Hong Kong, May 10, 2020
LOT 234
Unsigned - Large cabinet miniature; enamel
HKD 20,000 - 25,000
USD 2,600 - 3,300 / EUR 2,400 - 3,000 / CHF 2,600 - 3,300
Enamel, horizontal rectangular-shaped, large cabinet miniature. Polychrome painting on enamel on copper by an unknown painter, probably Augsburg, showing a scene that may relate to the story of Cyparissus or those of the Hamadryads of Greek mythology. The counter-enamel with a polychrome painted scene shows a man wearing a turban inviting a beautiful young blonde woman to enter a mansion; a servant in the background is wearing her dress.
| Grading System | |
|---|---|
Grade: AAA |
Excellent |
Case: 3-14 |
Good Damaged |
Brand Unsigned, Augsburg
Year circa 1680
Height 64.5 mm.
Width 85.6 mm.
Notes
This enamelled plate is most likely originally mounted on a snuffbox. Because of its technique and colour palette, it was most probably made in Augsburg, but it is almost impossible to attribute this scene to one of the painters then active in this city, as in fact they only very occasionally signed their works.
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Cyparissus
In Greek mythology, Cyparissus or Kyparissos was a boy beloved by Apollo, or in some versions by other deities. In the best-known version of the story, the favourite companion of Cyparissus was a tamed stag, which he accidentally killed with his hunting javelin as it lay sleeping in the woods. The boy’s grief was such that it transformed him into a cypress tree, a classical symbol of mourning. The myth is thus aetiological in explaining the relation of the tree to its cultural significance.
Cyparissus was the son of Telephus, and his story is set in Chios. The subject is mainly known from Hellenized Latin literature and frescoes from Pompeii. No Greek hero cult devoted to Cyparissus has been identified.
Ovid’s version
The tameness of the deer may be the invention of the Augustan poet Ovid, and a late literary reversal of the boy’s traditional role. Ovid’s Cyparissus is so grief-stricken at accidentally killing his pet that he asks Apollo to let his tears fall forever. The god then turns the boy into a cypress tree (Latin: cupressus), whose sap forms droplets like tears on the trunk.
Ovid frames the tale within the story of Orpheus, whose failure to retrieve his bride Eurydice from the underworld causes him to forsake the love of women in favour of that of boys. When Orpheus plays his lyre, even the trees are moved by the music; in the famous cavalcade of trees that ensues, the position of the cypress at the end prompts a transition to the metamorphosis of Cyparissus.
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The Hamadryades and Dryad nymphs
The Hamadryades were eight then later nine Dryad nymphs who with the exception of Dryope were the daughters of the forest spirit Oxylos and Hamadryas. The names of the Hamadryades are:
Aigeiros, the nymph of the black poplar.
Ampelos, the nymph of the vine, including the wild grape, bryony, black bryony and the wrack.
Balanis, the nymph of acorn-bearing trees such as the holm and prickly-cupped oaks.
· Karya, the nymph of the nut tree, both the hazel and walnut and possibly also the sweet chestnut.
· Kraneia, the nymph of the cornelian cherry tree.
· Morea, the nymph of the mulberry tree or else the wild olive.
· Ptelea, the nymph of the European elm.
· Syke, the nymph of the fig tree.
· Dryope, the nymph of a poplar tree (the only Hamadryad not born to Oxylos and Hamadryas).