The Dresden court jeweller Johann Christian Neuber (1736-1808) specialised in creating objects of vertu which combined locally-mined hardstones with delicate Zellenmosaik (‘cell mosaic’) work in gold, for which small thinly-polished hardstone panels are held in place by fine gold mounts in between, rather than inlaid on a prepared ground. Until this day, the specifics of this technique remain a mystery.

Neuber was apprenticed to Johann Friedrich Trechaon, a goldsmith of Swedish origin, in 1752 at the age of 17. In 1762 he became master goldsmith and Bürger of Dresden, succeeding Heinrich Taddel as director of the Grünes Gewölbe, and before 1775 he was appointed court jeweller. It was from Taddel, his father-in-law and mentor, that Neuber acquired his knowledge of hardstones and how to work them. Although commissioned to produce the occasional large-scale work such as a table inlaid with 128 hardstones given by the Elector of Saxony to the Baron de Breteuil in 1780 to celebrate the peace of Teschen (now in the Musée du Louvre, Paris), Neuber primarily specialised in a wide range of small-scale objects, including snuff boxes, carnets de bal, cane handles, watch cases, chatelaines, and jewellery such as bracelets and rings.

With regards to the present lot, it is interesting to note that the amethyst, rock crystal, garnets and other semi-precious stones forming the outer border of the lid are mounted in silver in a very similar way to the Breteuil table. A number of semi-precious stones identified for the famous table were also chosen for the present box, such as the Cornaline rouge de Chemnitz, (carnelian, specimen no. 11 on the present box) and the Ametiste tannée de Leisnig (amethyst, no. 3 on the present box). For some of his gold boxes, Neuber chose locally occurring hardstones in combination with other materials, turning them into perhaps some of the most wonderful scientific and aesthetically valuable artefacts allowing for many discoveries, such as the eighteenth-century occurrence of natural fresh water shell pearls in the river Weisse Elster in the Vogtland area in Germany, forming specimen no. 4 on the present lot (see Kugel, op. cit., pp. 322-323).

Neuber’s wider scientific interest is manifested by a small group of boxes that are not only decorated with the visually most appealing hardstone specimens, but also function as a miniature mineralogical cabinet, such as the present box. Every small-hardstone panel has a number engraved on the gold mount above. This number could then be looked up in a small booklet originally accompanying the box, with each engraved number relating to the scientific name of that very mineral inlaid on the box, as well as the place of its occurrence. Indeed it is known that Neuber had also rented quarries in Silesia where he would study the hardstones that occurred in the area, choosing the ones that were most suitable for one of his rare Steinkabinette (‘specimen stone cabinets’).

The present lot furthermore refers to another artistically extremely important centre at the t.mes . The porcelain plaque on the base of the stone cabinet represents the Albrechtsburg on the banks of the Elbe River just outside Dresden, where Augustus II the Strong had set up the Meissen porcelain manufactory in 1710, making the present box by Neuber a splendorous and intellectual witness of the manifold artistic production in Dresden in the last third of the eighteenth century.