A Two-Color Gold Presentation Snuff Box, Gebrüder Toussaint, Hanau, 1825

The faint maker's initials GT within three other marks on the base of this box (see detail image below) are those of Gebrüder Toussaint, active in Hanau between 1801 and 1825 as the continuation of the successful firm of Les Frères Toussaint (for more information the generational change, see lot 421 and 422 in this sale).

The present box can be dated precisely due to the number engraved on the rim: '3081'. It seems to be the highest number on a box by Gebrüder Toussaint recorded so far.

The corresponding rubbing of the box is included in one of the 23 pattern books or albums at the Drawing Academy in Hanau (Zeichenakademie). The album is dated 1823-1825 and the higher numbers are included towards the end of the album. Therefore it can be assumed that it was made in late 1824 or at the beginning of 1825, the same year in which the second Toussaint partnership came to an end with the death of Ludwig Otto Toussaint (1766-1825) outliving his younger brother Karl by twelve years (see Alexandra Starp, 'Grosse Bijouterie in Hanau in the early 19th century: new light on gold boxes made between 1798 and 1830', in Haydn Williams, 18th-century Snuffboxes: The David and Mikhail Iakobachvili Collection, vol II, London, 2025, pp. 217-225).