Julius Böhler is very pleased to have sold an important Limoges jug to the GRASSI Museum Leipzig on the occasion of its 150th anniversary, thanks to the support of the Ernst von Siemens Art Foundation.
The GRASSI Museum first opened its doors in 1874 as an arts and crafts museum in the Altes Amtshaus on Thomaskirchhof. Since 1929, the holdings have been housed in a prestigious museum building on Johannisplatz that, today, displays an impressive collection of applied art spanning 3000 years of art history. Incidentally, the museum owes its name to Franz Dominic Grassi (1801–80), a Leipzig merchant of Italian heritage. He bequeathed a fortune of more than two million marks to the city of Leipzig that was used to fund a number of different cultural projects in Leipzig, including the Museum of Applied Arts.
Not only the GRASSI Museum but also the Ernst von Siemens Art Foundation is celebrating an anniversary this year, namely its 40th . Established in 1983 by the entrepreneur and patron of the arts Ernst von Siemens (1903–90), the private foundation of the same name is today an indispensable institution in the German art-funding landscape. The Ernst von Siemens Art Foundation impressively testifies to the great entrepreneur’s considerable artistic enthusiasm and has supported the purchase and restoration of works of art since its inception. In total, it has enabled the acquisition of more than 560 works of art and extensive collections to date – an impressive number indeed.
Now, this beautiful enamel jug depicting a bacchanal and the Triumph of the Sea Gods, created in the workshop with the monogram ‘IC’ during the third quarter of the 16th century, has become a birthday present for the GRASSI Museum. The new acquisition enriches the existing collection of painted enamel works from the Limousin region and conveys “the outstanding significance of the enamel technique in the applied arts during the Renaissance” (Dr Thomas Rudi, GRASSI Museum).
Jug depicting a bacchanal and the Triumph of the Sea Gods, workshop with the monogram ‘IC’, Limoges, 3rd quarter of the 16th century
