A Large Gold and Enamel Snuff Box, Late Nineteenth Century
Auction Closed
June 18, 05:01 PM GMT
Estimate
12,000 - 18,000 USD
Lot Details
Description
circular, the hinged lid centered with a circular enamel plaque representing a teacher and two children in a domestic interior, within a chased gold entrelac frame and green basse-taille enamel border alternating with chased rosettes and shells, further intertwined gold and enamel frame, the sides applied with gold atlantes in high relief as dividers between green enamel bands over floral engine-turned ground above volute scrolls, French prestige marks
Diameter 3 in.
7.7 cm
A.G Hughes, Shrewsbury, then his widow;
Sotheby's London, 19 June 1941, lot 42, (then catalogued as possibly by Antoine Boullier, Paris, circa 1775);
Sir Charles Clore (1905-1979);
Christie's Geneva, 12 November 1985, lot 48;
Christie's London, 28 May 2002, lot 251
The decoration on the present unusually large gold box is a playful reminiscence of a more rigid decoration of enamel bands of varying length along the sides and a central portrait miniature surrounded by four chased flowerheads that was fashionable for gold boxes in Paris in the 1760s, as is shown by an example by Jean Formey, dated 1762/63, in the Musée du Louvre (Henry Nocq and Carle Dreyfus, Tabatières des Collections du Musée du Louvre, Paris, 1930, no. 40, plate XXV).