Sophie von der Goltz
Head of Sale
Lot 87
A gilt metal-mounted Meissen rectangular snuff box, circa 1750-60
3 July 2025, 14:00 BST
London, New Bond Street£2,000 - £3,000
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Raphael Machiels
Associate Specialist
Ghislaine Howard
Sale Coordinator
A gilt metal-mounted Meissen rectangular snuff box, circa 1750-60
Painted with landscape vignettes of elegant figures engaged at various pursuits, the interior of the cover with a group of elegant ladies and a gentleman posed at a fountain with two sheep at their feet, a building and a bridge in the background, 4.1cm high, 8cm wide (haircrack to one corner of box and cover)
Footnotes
Provenance:
Dr Leon Lilienfeld, Vienna;
Thence by descent to the present owner
Leon Lilienfeld was born Joseph Leib Leon Lilienfeld to a Jewish family in Podhajce, near L'vov in South-Eastern Poland (now the Ukraine), in 1869. Dr Lilienfeld was trained as a physician and went on to become an eminent scientist and inventor, producing various new derivatives of cellulose and becoming world-renowned for his inventions, obtaining patents both in Austria and the United States.
After his marriage to Antonie Schulz in 1814, Leon and Antonie Lilienfeld decided to reside in Vienna. They were keen collectors and built a significant collection of Dutch and Flemish old master paintings, which were published in 1917 by Austrian art historian Gustav Glück, including Portrait of a Man (1665) by Frans Hals, now in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (inv. 66.1054).
The couple left Austria shortly after the Anschluss in 1938 and fled to Milan, leaving their home and their art collection in Austria. Tragically Dr Lilienfeld died of pneumonia in Milan on June 6, 1938, leaving his widow as his sole heir. In 1939 she made a request to export the collection of paintings, but eight were seized, as they were considered too valuable to leave the Third Reich.
By 1941 Antonie Schulz Lilienfeld had settled in the USA, in the Boston suburb of Winchester, Massachusetts, where she remained until her death in 1972. After the war all eight of the paintings were recovered and two were donated to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, including the Frans Hals portrait.
