Austria, Vienna

1840's

Josef Weichberger

Gold, pearls, brass, steel; painted enamel, champlevé enamel, engraving, guilloche, chasing, gem stones setting

9.2 x 3.2 x 2.5 cm

Master's mark: JW in the rectangle, Wien golden marks

Gold snuffbox in the form of a harp with music movement and a perfume bottle. It consists of a base on the shaped feet, a resonator case, a curved neck with tuning pins and engraved floral ornament, twenty-six strings and a vertical bar. The lateral surface of the base is decorated with stems with leaves and stylized snowdrops over the red transparent enamel background. Behind the opening lid is A musical movement is behind the opening lid. A start/stop lever is to the left. The upper panel of the basis decorated with a curved lattice, the master's hallmark and Vienna golden stamps are on the bottom panel. There is an opening door with an image of branches with golden leaves and champlevé enamel flowers of white, yellow and blue colors on red transparent enamel over guilloche background on the front round panel of the case. The laurel branches surrounding an opened note book are below it. A glass bottle for perfume, trimmed in gold from two sides with a cork is inside. The image of maidens in the fluttering robes with lyres and winged Cupids with flowers and ribbons are on the harp neck in the chased frames. The base of the bar is decorated with relief leaves and red and blue enamel elements with a pearls rim. The top of the bar, intertwined with a narrow ribbon of blue champlevé enamel, is decorated with rows of leaves: the lower one - with pearls, the upper one - of blue enamel.

The top of the bar is hexagonal with three-petal flowers of white enamel on a red background. Music movement with a spring motor, a sound comb and a program cylinder that imitates the sound of the harp.