A gold and enamel snuff box, Pierre-André Montauban, Paris, 1809-1819

VAT reduced rate

Auction Closed

May 25, 03:15 PM GMT

Estimate

8,000 - 12,000 GBP

Lot Details

Description

Property from an important European private collection

A gold and enamel snuff box, Pierre-André Montauban, Paris, 1809-1819

rectangular with cut corners, the lid applied with a contemporary Geneva enamel plaque of cherubs holding flower garlands and cornucopiae and frolicking around dolphins in the sea, the sides and underside decorated in regular concentric engine-turning within dark blue narrow enamel border and further scrolling garland border on a very fine sablé ground, maker's mark, Paris unofficial third standard mark, petite garantie 1809-1819, later eagle's head control mark

9.1cm., 3⅝in. wide

Born in Paris on 22 September 1763, Pierre-André Montauban is only recorded in Paris from 1800, when he entered a post-revolutionary mark as bijoutier; garnisseur from 30 quai des Orfèvres. As garnisseur, he specialised in mounting miniatures or other types of panels, such as micromosaics, in gold boxes (such as an example with a Roman micromosaic by Antonio Aguatti, representing Cupid driving a shell-chariot, now in the Gilbert Collection, London, acc no. 474-2008). For a stylistically rather similar gold box to the present lot in terms of the engine-turned concentric pattern and scrolling borders, as well as the inner zig-zag ornamented mount around the central plaque, see Sotheby's London, The Collection of a Connoisseur, 14 July 2020, lot 30. Because no boxes with Montauban's maker's mark are to be found with a post-1819 Paris mark, it is generally assumed that he either died or retired before then.