A Doccia porcelain silver-gilt-mounted snuff box, circa 1750

With Don Peppino Giglio;

Roberto Procida Mirabelli di Lauro Collection, Naples, no. 154, acquired from the above in 1979;

Bonhams, London, 6 July 2010, lot 39.

B. Beaucamp-Markowsky, Boîtes en Porcelaine des manufactures européennes au 18e siècle, Fribourg 1985, p. 512, cat. no. 467.

"Galanterie", the so-called collective term for precious small objects in porcelain such as snuff boxes, cane handles, pipes and perfume bottles, was an important and lucrative part of the manufactory's business and was rolled in its formative years. When Carlo Ginori moved to Livorno he established a 'Laboratorio degli Argentieri', a laboratory principally for producing mounts in precious metals for these luxury objects, as well as making objects in semi-precious stones (Biancalana, 2023, p. 148.) The present snuff box is arguably among the most famous of galanterie produced at Doccia. The concept, an idea of Ginori himself, was to celebrate the rich history of the Empire with series of miniature cameo medallions, depicting either the Kings of Egypt, the Roman Emperors and the Caesars, or the great scholars of antiquity.

The first reference to cameos of the type is found on 28 August 1747 when a payment was registered to the sculptor Antonio Francesco Selvi “for making 6 cameo models in wax” (AGL, Libro Contabile, 1746-1749, 1747, fol. 206v). The sculptor Anton Filippo Maria Weber supplied the wax models for 57 little portraits of Caesars: on November 16 1749, the payment to Weber is registered “to settle the account for several models in wax to be used to make snuff boxes and ornaments with cameos” related to a receipt “for a model and two moulds to make an ornament with the heads of ten Caesars” (G. Lisci, La porcellana di Doccia, Milan 1963, p. 140), quoted from A. Biancalana, et al., 'The Victoria and Albert Museum Collection', Amici di Doccia - Quaderni VII 2013, 2014, pp. 36-37, no. 11.

Similar miniature cameos were incorporated into small plaques, like the examples in the Sanseverino collection, and the Victoria & Albert museum, London, acc. no. C.128-1924. A box of this type moulded with a series of Roman Emperors, was sold at Sotheby's, Geneva, 14 May 1991, lot 4; a further larger box was sold at Sotheby's, London, 20 November 1970, lot 18, and again 11 April 1978, lot 376, illustrated in Biancalana, 2023, p. 110, fig. 50; Bondi, 'La Decorazione a Riporto nella Produzione Primitivi di Doccia', Faenza, 1971, vol. LVII, pl. XIV, fig. a.

Related Literature

A. Biancalana, Porcellane Ginori a Doccia, La stanza delle meraviglie di casa Colli, Milan 2023, p. 110, fig. 50.