A Commemorative Gold and Enamel Snuff Box, Charles Magnin, Geneva, Circa 1850

Charles Louis, elder son of the bijoutier Aléxandre Magnin and his wife Fanely Gentil, was born in Geneva at 6 a.m. on 26 July 1810. When Aléxandre died at the early age of forty-four in 1830, his widow and young son continued his business at 45 rue Jean-Jacques Rousseau; five years later Charles took over complete control. He is recorded as working at various addresses until 1876, and from 1851, unusually at that late date, is described in the directories as specialising in tabatières d'or (Haydn Williams, Enamels of the World, The Khalili Collections, London, 2009, p. 317).

For a similar example by Charles Magnin, see Sotheby's London, The Collection of a Connoisseur, 14 July 2020, lot 52. A larger gold box with an almost identical portrait, supporters and decoration, the bust of Napoleon surmounted by an eagle and above a painted enamel lion, formed part of the Palace Collections of Egypt, Sotheby's Cairo, 11 March 1954, lot 692.