A Doccia white porcelain shell-shaped silver-gilt-mounted snuff box, circa 1750

With Don Peppino Giglio;

Roberto Procida Mirabelli di Lauro Collection, Naples, no. 115, acquired from the above in 1972;

Bonhams, London, 6 July 2010, lot 43.

It appears that very few examples of this rare model are recorded in Doccia porcelain. One other, painted in enamels, is in the collection of the Museo di ceramiche antiche Giuseppe Gianetti, Saronno.

By contrast, a relatively large number of shell-shaped snuff boxes survive in Capodimonte porcelain. The factory's modeller Giuseppe Gricci is recorded in December 1743 working shell-shaped boxes, with sale records listing they were available in at least two sizes, as cited by A. Caròla-Perrotti, Le Porcellane dei Borbone di Napoli: Capodimonte e Real Fabbrica Ferdinandea 1743-1806, Naples, 1986, pp. 233-37.