Small Solid Silver Tea Caddy — Silversmiths Perti And Rollin — Kassel Circa 1720-1730

Small plain solid silver tea caddy
Made by Johann Christian Perti (1654-1730) and finished (or re-hallmarked) by his brother-in-law Ludwig Rollin (1674-1744) Landgraviate of Hesse-Kassel, circa 1720-1730
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Length: ~5.8 cm
Depth: ~4.6 cm
Height: ~7.9 cm
Weight: 111 g.
Beautifully shaped with scalloped corners and a convex top. Airtight stopper with a knob-like grip (some play in the riveting). Very good overall condition; minor dents on the lid.
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On the bottom:
• control mark
• hallmark of the city of Kassel, used from 1670 to 1748 [Neuhaus p.336 Bz3]
• hallmark of Johann Christian Perti [Neuhaus p.322 no. 57]
• hallmark of Ludwig Rollin [Neuhaus p.323 no. 66], struck on the previous one
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This small tea box, which was probably part of a travel kit, takes up in goldsmithing the contemporary forms created in porcelain, notably in Meissen.
Its double hallmark is particularly interesting: one can discern a first hallmark, with a clover as its distinguishing mark, which can be attributed with certainty to the goldsmith Johann Christian Perti (1654-1730), who became a master in Kassel in 1679. A citizen in 1682, a master of the Guild from 1689 to 1692 and again from 1700 to 1702, he died in 1730 at the age of 76.
The second hallmark, struck over the first, is that of the Huguenot refugee Louis (or Ludwig) Rollin, born in Metz around 1674 and registered in the Kassel Guild in 1699. A master in 1716 and 1717, and director of the Mint from 1724, he died in 1744 at the age of 70. Rollin was Perti's brother-in-law since his marriage in 1699 to Anna Catharina Kessler. Did he inherit his brother-in-law's stock, or simply finish a piece that had been left unfinished?
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The Kassel Museum holds in its collections a very fine chocolate pot by Louis Rollin, dating from the same period, 1720-1730.
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We extend our sincere gratitude to Mr. Martin Kiener of Zurich for reading these difficult hallmarks and for generously sharing his documentation.
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Literature
• Reiner Neuhaus and Ekkehard Schmidberger, Kasseler Silber, Ed. Minerva, 1998