One of the unusual lots in the glass sale at Dr Fischer in Heilbronn on October 16 is a mid-17th century wooden casket, the sides and top panel of which are fitted with engraved rock crystal panels.
They are decorated with depictions of the four seasons and are the work of the famous Nuremberg engraver Georg Schwanhardt the Elder, who founded a veritable dynasty of glass artists. Georg first trained in the workshop of his father, a cabinetmaker who also specialised in making gun stocks, before he worked with the ivory sculptor Christoph Harrich.
In 1618 he moved to Prague, where he joined the workshop of Caspar Lehmann, who was the first craftsman to apply wheel engraving, previously used exclusively for gem-cutting, to glass and rock crystal.