Christian Eriksson (1858 - 1935)
Soap Box, 1897
Silver (gilded interior), 7.2 x 16.5 x 9.5 cm (2 13/16 x 6 1/2 x 3 3/4 in.)
This is a rectangular silver soap box with a gilded interior. A young nude girl is on the top, smiling and bending backward as if in a pool of water. Her torso forms the handle of the hinged lid and the bottom of her legs are not visible. There are two figures at the base of the box; on one side a nude female is seated and gazing at the child, on the other, a nude male is kneeling, his face hidden in his elbow. The other two sides of the box are curved, and appear draped. The back of the soap box is hinged.
Dutch Room
Commentary
Christian Eriksson studied in Stockholm, worked as a furniture maker in Hamburg, and then lived in Paris between 1883 and 1897 before returning to Sweden. He made portraits and large-scale sculptures for Swedish public buildings, including two monumental sandstone reliefs on the facade of Stockholm’s opera house (1907).Much of Eriksson’s early work consists of small-scale vases and vessels in silver and bronze. This delicate hinged box shows a girl partly submerged in a stone tub – almost a travertine fountain. She ripples the water, an effect beautifully rendered in the worked surface of the silver. Two figures (her parents, according to Anders Zorn) decorate the sides of the tub. Playful in design and finely worked, the object combines Swedish themes with the spirit of Parisian art nouveau.The painter Anders Zorn arranged for Eriksson to make the box for Mrs. Gardner. He may also have helped select the theme, since bathing was one of Zorn’s favorite subjects, and Gardner already owned Zorn’s painting of a mother and child bathing in a stream. Zorn had earlier offered to make a jewelry box for Mrs. Gardner. Zorn’s completed object (Zorn Museum, Mora) is very similar in style and concept to Eriksson’s box, but Zorn was loathe to part with it, and Gardner never received it.Source: Eye of the Beholder, edited by Alan Chong et al. (Boston: ISGM and Beacon Press, 2003): 216.