letter scale, France
This rare letter scale is from France. The wooden base is surrounded by a decorative border and has a decorative flat on top. Both are made of silver-plated brass. The silvered dial and the silvered top plate have an image in the metal. The edge of the top plate has the title of the image: LE MATIN DE LA NOCE. (translated: the morning of the wedding / the wedding morning / Am_Hochzeitsmorgen_(Brautschmückung) / de ochtend van de bruiloft). The bride is festively dressed up and the groom just comes into the room. It appears to be an engraving after a painting by the American Henry Mosler. That painting was first shown at the Salon in Paris in 1883. The image on the dial is a part of an earlier work by Henry Mosler from 1882, namely Les Accordailles (literally: the engagement, elsewhere named: the dispute about the dowry / the discussion of the marriage contract). I found only an old photo of the original painting on the internet, and a picture of a litho of the painted scene and elsewhere on a silvered box the same image made by and signed by the engraver B. Wicker, see below.
Henry Mosler was born on June 6, 1841 in Troplowitz, Silesia now Poland, near the Czech border. He emigrated with his parents to the U.S.A. He died April 21, 1920. He studied and worked in Europe, among others in Germany and worked for long periods in France. He sketched and painted the life in Brittany.
the images on my letter scale don't have a makers name. The scale goes up to 60 grams and shows a stripe of measure for every five grams and the value in figures. An indication for the unit of measure is missing, there is no Gr. or Grammes. The pointer is a bit plain and probably is not original. The parts of the mechanism are nickel-plated.
Below some more photographs of this beautidul French letter scale.
back of the scale
