Brush fitting

The brush fitting is a part of a ten-part toilet set containing a pair of single-candle candlesticks, two pairs of small caskets of various sizes and one big casket and two seashell-shaped snuffboxes (Wil.510–Wil.519). Silvers from the set were made by a Berlin goldsmith active in the first half of the 18th century, who signed his works as Röhner. The unique artistic value of this set lies in the decoration of casket lids, jewel box sides and candlestick bases and stems made of surfaces fully covered with enamel and adorned with caps of pure gold, called “Saxony enamel”. Such luxurious products were ordered and distributed by Pierre Fromery – an armourer and trader in haberdashery products, who arrived in Berlin from Paris in 1685. Fromery and his son Alexander (also trading in medals) presumably commissioned Berlin experts to make plates with this unique decoration. The set is one of the unique works adorning the richest treasuries of rulers in Munich, Vienna and Denmark and museum collections in Hamburg or Boston.

The shape of the brush fitting repeats the form of rectangular caskets with rounded narrower sides and with four semi-circular grooves on broader sides. The convex top is completely covered with enamel with intricately chiselled golden ornaments put upon it. In the middle, there is the figure of Hercules with a club carrying apples from the Hesperides’ garden for Eurystheus, the king of Mycenae. The inclined edges of the cover are adorned with intricately chiselled golden caps with small heads as well as
garlands and animals put upon the enamel surface.

The brush fitting, along with the entire set (called the Dressing Table in the 19th century), was shown to the Warsaw audience during An Exhibition of Antique and Art Objects in the palace of Count August Potocki and his wife at Krakowskie Przedmieście 32 (today the Museum of the University of Warsaw) in 1856. The set is described in the catalogue of this exhibition under item 513.

Joanna Paprocka-Gajek