Tiled stove

Description

This tiled stove from the estate of the mayor of Basle Johannes Ryhiner, who lived at the Reinackerhof at St. Johanns Vorstadt 3, is designed like a piece of fine furniture. It is particularly unusual in having an opening at the front with small, pierced brass doors. Generally tiled stoves were stoked from behind, either from the kitchen or from a corridor. Presumably this stove stood against an outer wall and the fire could only be tended from the front. This cannot be proven, however, as the working parts of the firebox do not survive. Similar flower sprays in Rococo cartouches, freely painted with swift brushstrokes, can be found on a service made in 1754-60 for Cardinal Rohan and on another stove, both now in the Musée des Arts Decoratifs, Strasbourg. The painter has yet to be identified, although there are similarities in style with the flower painting of Emanuel Jakob Frisching who worked at the Berne factory from 1760 to 1776. Comparable figures of putti are found on a Strasbourg stove in the Residenz in Würzburg, made during the time that Johann Wilhelm Lanz was chief modeller at the Paul Hannong factory.