Lot 42: A Jewelled Two-Colour Gold-Mounted Guilloché Enamel Presentation Box

A Jewelled Two-Colour Gold-Mounted Guilloché Enamel Presentation Box
by Hahn, with the workmaster's initials of Alexander Treiden, St Petersburg, circa 1890
Oblong with rounded corners, the hinged cover enamelled in translucent pale yellow over a sunburst guilloché ground within a chased leaf border, centering the diamond cypher of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna within a bow-tied laurel leaf wreath surmounted by a crown, the sides and base reeded, marked inside cover and on flange
3 7/8 in. (9.7 cm.) long

With Wartski, London.
Mr and Mrs Charles C. Engelhard, sold Christie's, New York, March 18, 2005, lot 74, wrongly catalogued as by A. Tillander.
Acquired from the above sale by the present owner.

VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price and at 15% on the buyer's premium
Karl Hahn, an Austrian, established his business in 1873 and eventually became an important supplier to the Imperial Court, receiving the title of purveyor to the Court during the reign of Emperor Alexander III. In 1896, Hahn was appraiser of the cabinet and in 1898 was made a hereditary honorary citizen. The title of purveyor to the Court was renewed for Karl Hahn's son Dmitrii Karlovich in 1903, who became a merchant of the First Guild in 1907. At the time of Dmitrii Hahn's death in 1911, the business was dissolved. The firm's production was handled primarily in the workshops of Carl Blank and Alexander Treiden, who worked exclusively for Hahn. The firm's many commissions to the Cabinet of His Imperial Majesty included the coronation crown of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, diamond insignia of various orders, and presentation jewellery, cigarette cases and snuff-boxes. Based on the research of Ulla Tillander-Godenhielm, Hahn supplied the cabinet with 59 snuff-boxes with the Sovereign's cypher between 1894 and 1917 (U. Tillander-Godenhielm, The Russian Imperial Award System, 1894-1917, Helsinki, 2005, pp. 179-184).

By repute, the present box belonged to Professor D. H. Ott, the accoucheur to Empress Alexandra Feodorovna from 1895 to 1904, delivering the five children of the Imperial couple and attending the Empress during the pregnancies.

He received not less than twelve jewelled presentation boxes. For a similar box by Blank see: U. Tillander-Godenhielm, The Russian Imperial Award System, 1894-1917, Helsinki, 2005, pp. 357-359.