A fine Fabergé jewelled gold, enamel and smoky quartz shell-form bonbonnière, Moscow, circa 1895

the quartz carved in the form of a spiral Trochid, the opening mounted with an undulating gold lid enamelled in translucent moss green over sunburst engine-turning, overlaid with rocaille trellis set with rose-cut diamonds, scroll border, the thumbpiece with cabochon ruby flanked by diamonds, marked KF in Cyrillic, 56 standard

Sotheby's Geneva, 26 November 1982, lot 191
Wartski, London, sold 1984

The tradition of creating boxes by mounting either natural shells or shell-form carved hardstone in gold reached its apex during the mid eighteenth century with the popularity of snuffing.  The Green Vaults of Dresden include a number of such objects.  Fabergé, who lived in Dresden from 1860 to 1863 and whose father lived there until his death in 1893, was familar with the objects in the Green Vaults and took inspiration from them, most famously in the case of the Renaissance Imperial Easter Egg of 1894.  Shell-form boxes were a particular favourite of Parisian goldsmiths of the 1740s, whose work Fabergé especially admired and took inspiration from.

Most of Fabergé's hardstone or crystal shell-form bonbonnières or snuff boxes are by Michael Perchin, including a smoky quartz example formerly in the Kazan Collection (see M. Ghosn, Objets de Vertu par Fabergé, 1996, no. 100).  For other Perchin examples, see Sotheby's London, 21 December 1959, lot 157; Sotheby's London, 8 July 1963, lot 180; Sotheby's London, 9 June 1969, lot 106; Christie's Geneva, 28 April 1976, lot 186 (later sold Christie's Geneva, 27 April 1977, lot 447); Christie's Geneva, 5 July 1977, lot 185 (later offered Christie's New York, 23 March 1983, lot 403).  See also H.C. Bainbridge, Peter Carl Fabergé, 1966, pl. 54; A.K. Snowman, The Art of Carl Fabergé, 1962, pl. 160, for an example by Kollin; and Sotheby's London, 19 May 1963, lot 170, which is by Wigström.

Most notable on this piece is the lid, with its enamel on a wavy surface, which is difficult to achieve technically.  When Wartski's owned the object, their advertisement noted that "this represents a tour-de-force in enamelling which appears to be unique in Fabergé's oeuvre.  The sea's softening effect on both the stone shell and its cover is thus expressed with great subtlety."