A Gold and Enamel Snuff Box, Frères Colin, Hanau, Circa 1785

Christie's London, 16 November 2010, lot 423

Lorenz Seelig has recently suggested the brothers Paul Philipp Col(l)in and Philipp Gabriel Col(l)in as the makers of gold boxes struck with the mark FC for Frères Colin (Lorenz Seelig, 'Eighteenth-century Hanau Snuff Boxes' in Haydn Williams, 18th-century Snuffboxes: The David and Mikhail Iakobachvili Collection, vol. I, London, 2024, p. 372). Most boxes recorded with this mark so far (among them four in the collection of Alan and Simone Hartman) seem to have been made in the last two decades of the 18th century, proving the point that the Colin family played an important role in Hanau bijouterie long before the firm of Charles Colin & Söhne became famous for their early 19th century snuff boxes and later large-scale presentation boxes.