The Viennese goldsmith Johann Georg Aigner was born between 1761 and 1765 and became a master goldsmith in 1789. Aigner remained active until about 1820. He seems to have specialised in hardstone boxes, both circular specimen examples in the manner of Dresden court jeweller Johann Christian Neuber (see an example inlaid in different agates, sold Christie’s New York, 5 October 1979, lot 248) and cut-cornered boxes of only one kind of hardstone,

often chosen for its aesthetic qualities or interesting striation, such as an elegant lumachelle box, sold Lempertz, Cologne, 16 May 2014, lot 488. A combination of both types is furthermore to be found in an oval example in the Victoria and Albert Museum, on which the lid and the base consist of polished lapis lazuli panels, whereas the sides are inlaid in Zellenmosaik with bands of agate, quartz, jasper and other specimen (acc. no. 190-1878). Aigner’s Viennese contemporaries, such as Dominikus Dudeum, seem to have been equally infected by the hardstone-mania that swept the German-speaking countries in the second half of the 18^th century, originally mainly fuelled by Saxony’s wealth in minerals and the mercantile state politics after the Seven Years War (see for example a circular gold box inlaid in 17 different agates, dated 1793 and marked for Dudeum, sold Sotheby’s New York, 21 October 2010, lot 81). Only little is known about Aigner, but the surviving examples of his work further demonstrate that he must have been a mounter as much as a lapidary, as shown by a gold-mounted Japanese lacquer snuff box with his marks which is now in the Gilbert Collection (inv. no 339-2008).

It is not surprising for the period in the late 18^th century that Aigner paired a plain porphyry specimen box, using stone perhaps imported from Egypt, with a micromosaic plaque most likely made in Rome, seeing how cleverly the wings of the butterfly pick up the purple hues of the porphyry. Goldsmiths in many places worked with imported micromosaics from Rome or Florence, from the Dresden court jeweller Johann Christian Neuber to the most renowned bijoutiers in Paris, such as Montauban or Vachette, especially in the Napoleonic period. While the latter are always marked as such, it is particularly interesting to see a hardstone and micromosaic bonbonniere which would traditionally have been attributed to Rome coming from another and slightly less expected place of production in Europe.