posted 08-28-2009 08:21 PM            

Many years ago I bought this tea strainer at an auction (the one where I now work, as it turned out). It’s always been one of my favorite pieces, and the one that started my fascination with these spider-like strainers. It has a gilt interior and bone handle, the latter with scrimshaw-type engraved and stained monogram. The marks are beautiful and clear:

The center mark is that used in the Austrian Empire from 1807 until 1866, with the “13” representing the purity of 13 lot (.833) silver, surrounded by the year “1864” and the letter “B”, the code letter for the assay office in Prague. (The history of this Imperial mark and list of the code letters for it can be found on that very useful research tool, Google Books, in the form of the full text of Karl Knies’ Die Punzirung in Oesterreich. You can also download the text as a PDF file.

There are, unfortunately, very few sources for identifying makers from Prague, and the few that exist barely touch upon the 19th century, so I had no luck at all identifying the maker. I even corresponded with the assay office in Prague, and they kindly sent me some great photos of two copper insculpation plates of makers’ marks of the early 19th century, explaining that they were working on creating an encyclopedia of the known marks registered there. Of course, like most projects of its type it is under-funded and under-staffed and the results are still some time off.

So there the matter remained. The maker’s mark “HG” is quite legible, and there is an additional clue of another impressed mark: the Austrian Imperial eagle. A similar mark was used by Mayerhofer & Klinkosch in Vienna to indicate that they held a warrant as a supplier to the royal court.

Recently, though, I was once again browsing through Google Books (an almost obsessive/compulsive pastime of mine) when I stumbled across a series of German language address books from 1864-1865, one volume of which covered Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia and Krakow. Prague, now part of the Czech Republic, was then the capital of the Kingdom of Bohemia, I remembered, so I eagerly checked the Prague listings for “Gold- und Silberw. Fabriken” and there I found:

quote:

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Grohmann, H. - k.k. Hof Juwelier und Juwelier Sr. k. Hoheit des Herzogs von Sachsen-Coburg-Gotha. Preis-Medaillen in Leipzig, London, Paris, München und London 62. [“Grohmann, H. – I.R. [Imperial Royal] Court Jeweler and Jeweler to H.R. Highness the Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. Prize-Medals in Leipzig, London, Paris, Munich and London [18]62.”]

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This had to be the man – right initials, right time, right place, and bearer of the royal warrant. (The Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha in 1864/65 was Ernest II (1818-1893), elder brother of Queen Victoria’s consort, Prince Albert.) But who was H. Grohmann?

A little more digging turned up some of the International Exhibition records (1851, London, for instance: “H. Grohmann, Prague: gold trinkets and a set of Bohemian garnets”), but finally I found an exhibition record from the 1845 Third General Austrian Industrial Exhibition in Vienna:

quote:

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Hieronymus Grohmann, Hof-Juwelier in Prag (Ausstellungs-Nr. 1610): Ein Pontifical - Kreuz, in welches Granaten aus den fürstlich Lobkowitz'schen Gruben zu Liebshausen gefasst waren. [Hieronymus Grohmann, court jeweler in Prague (Exhibitor no. 1610): A Pontifical Cross, in which the garnets were taken from the Prince Lobkowitz mines in Liebshausen.]

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Hieronymus: also, Jerome or (in Czech) Jeronym. More internet searching of these and other variants of his name allowed me to assemble a short biography.

Hieronymus Grohmann (12 Sep 1803-1 Dec 1859) received the warrant as court jeweler to the King of Bohemia by 1845. The company had a branch in Hamburg and participated in the International exhibitions in London, 1851 (“Bohemian garnets set in buttons ; buckles, necklaces, smelling-bottles, and bracelets”) and Paris, 1855 (“a magnificent collection of jewellery, comprising coronets, bracelets, bouquets of garnets, rings, necklaces, pins, and more particularly a massive cross of silver, in repousse with gilded niches, in the Gothic style, containing statuettes of the Madonna and Child”) He died at the comparably young age of 56, but his workshop was continued by his widow Aloysia and son Jindrich. The last mention I could find of the firm - evidently best known for its “Bohemian Garnet” jewelry - was around 1873.

I’m delighted to have solved this puzzle, and I suspect there are others here who share the deep satisfaction of those “Eureka!” moments provided only by primary research. I heartily encourage those like-minded researchers to explore the richness of Google Books!

posted 08-29-2009 12:08 PM            

I'd offer one proposed correction: I'm pretty certain, even from just a photo, that the handle is ivory, not bone. Very distinctive grain.

posted 09-01-2009 12:45 PM            

As you can see from the Dickens article the history of U.S. companies publishing English author's works in the U.S. without payment worked to the disadvantage of both English author and U.S. authors. The English authors did not receive payment and many if not most of the U.S. authors simply could not complete with the English authors.