A very rare Dutch stipple-engraved light baluster goblet by Frans Greenwood, circa 1744The round funnel bowl decorated with a half-length portrait of a fishwife, her head slightly turned and with a downward gaze, wearing a low-cut bodice and a flat-topped wide-brimmed hat, holding a herring by its tail in her left hand, another fish on an oval platter with a wavy border resting on her lap beneath her right arm, a spray of flowering lilies in a jug behind a pail of herrings on a table to her right, on a densely stippled ground, the reverse signed 'Frans Greenwood fecit.' in diamond-point script, raised on a tall slender multi-knopped baluster stem, above a later replacement parcel-gilt foot chased with strapwork and foliate scrolls, 24.3cm highFootnotes:ProvenanceSotheby's, 3 June 1974, lot 116Viscount Newport, Earl of Bradford, Weston Park, Shifnal, Christie's, 4 June 1985, lot 30With Heide Hübner, Würzburg, 1986Mühleib Collection, Bonhams, 2 May 2013, lot 57Stephen Pohlmann CollectionLiteratureNoel Riley, 'Antique Glass in Shropshire', The Antique Dealer and Collectors Guide (June 1975), p.147, fig.5The Earl of Bradford, 'Making a Collection', The Antique Collector, Vol.56, No.6 (June 1985), pp.108-9, fig.1Frank Davis, 'Talking about Salerooms', Country Life, Vol.178 (July 1985), p.215, fig.1David Watts, 'Glass', in Elizabeth Drury (ed.), Antiques (1986), p.87Frans Smit, Frans Greenwood (1988), p.151-2, no.44.1, figs.97 and 99Frans Smit, Uniquely Dutch Eighteenth-Century Stipple-Engravings on Glass (1993), p.121, no.Dc.3ExhibitedWeston Park, Shifnal, 198331. Deutsche Kunst- und Antiquitäten-Messe, Haus der Kunst, Munich, 1986Frans Greenwood (1680-1763) was a Dordrecht merchant of English extraction, born in Rotterdam. An amateur artist, poet and glass engraver, he is traditionally credited as being the first artist to experiment with stipple engraving in the early 1720s and the first engraver to produce a whole picture on a glass in the technique. The techniques he developed had a profound influence on the work of a number of other glass engravers in Dordrecht, including Aert Schouman, making him one of the most important glass artists of his time.The herring industry or 'Groote Visscherij' (Great Fishery) played a very important role in the Dutch economy and the fishwives of Scheveningen were a favourite subject of Greenwood. They traditionally wore hats with flattened tops to accommodate the fish baskets they carried on their heads, with the wide brim offering protection against resulting drips. The poet Jacob Cats published a poem 'On a woman from Schevenigen carrying a basket of fish on her head' as early as 1654.The scene on the present lot is paralleled by an almost identical portrait of a fishwife against a different background, signed by Greenwood and dated 1744. This is in the Huis van Gijn in Dordrecht, illustrated and discussed alongside the present goblet by Smit (1988), pp.151-3, no.44.2, figs.98 and 100. Another goblet but with a different portrait of a fishwife, signed by Greenwood and dated 1742, was in the Anton Dreesman Collection sold by Sotheby's on 3 June 1974, lot 115 and again by Christie's in Amsterdam on 16 April 2002, lot 1279. This is illustrated and discussed by Smit (1988), pp.146-7, no.42.1, fig.90.All three glasses unusually depict a fishwife holding a herring by its tail. This is echoed in several contemporary Dutch Old Master portraits of women selling herrings by artists including Gerrit Dou (1613-1675), Godfried Schalcken (1643-1706) and Carel de Moor (1656-1738). In Dutch painting this is sometimes interpreted as a demonstration of promiscuity, but the lilies shown behind her traditionally symbolise purity and it is clear from Greenwood's poetry that he held fisherwomen and the fishing industry as whole in particularly high regard. Interestingly, one of the Directors of the Dutch East India Company, Pauls Schepers, bequeathed a 'haringwijfje' goblet to his second Cousin Gerard Schepers in the mid-18th century, which may refer to either the present goblet or the example from the Dreesman Collection, see Smit (1988), pp.146-7.This lot is subject to the following lot symbols: ** VAT on imported items at a preferential rate of 5% on Hammer Price and the prevailing rate on Buyer's Premium.For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com
