A Charles II silver tobacco box

Asprey & Co., London, October 1984

Sotheby's, New York, The Collection of Anne H. & Frederick Vogel III, 19 January 2019, lot 915

There has long been disagreement over the dating of tobacco boxes featuring the bust of Charles I, a small number of which survive. One example (sold Sotheby's, London, 3 March 1983, lot 79) carries the mark attributed by David Mitchell to Benjamin Braford, a London silversmith who finished his apprenticeship in 1666. This suggests the boxes were commemorative.