Frères Jordan

A German Gold and Enamel Box

Frères Jordan

A German Gold and Enamel Box

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Gold and Enamel
Hanau, circa 1790

Width: 9.5 cm, 3.7 in.
Height: 1.2 cm, ½ in.
Weight: 116 gr., 3 oz. 14 dwt.

Rectangular box with canted corners, the cover set with an enamel miniature depicting a bridge across a river, a fisherman in the foreground and a castle beyond. The sides and base set with panels of opaque grey enamel with white enamel fillets and sky-blue borders with chased gold rims, the side pilasters with white enamel and gold taille d’épargne vases.

It has been suggested that boxes bearing the marks FJ - with laurel above, with or without a sunray mark and a crossed-S mark is possibly for Frères Jordan (circa 1790-1820), Berlin or Hanau, previously attributed to François Joanin, Geneva, are the work of Huguenot goldsmiths who flourished in the Rhineland in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, most notably in Hanau and Berlin.
Characterized with the same shallow construction, occasionally with canted corners and style of decoration their production seems to date from circa 1790 to circa 1820.
A number of these boxes bearing this hallmark are illustrated in the essay Swiss Snuff-Boxes 1785-1835 written by J. Clarke, in H. Williams, ed. Enamels of the World 1700-2000 The Khalili Collections, London, 2009, pp. 293-305.
Taking into account the unlikelihood of 'FJ' boxes being made in either Geneva or Hanau and the significant information recorded by Erman and Reclam, as well as evidence that may be gleaned from the boxes themselves, it is reasonable to suggest that the mark 'FJ' is that of Frères Jordan, Prussian crown jewellers, in Berlin.