A CHARLES I OR II SILVER OVAL ROYALIST TOBACCO BOX, PROBABLY LONDON, CIRCA 1640-70 |

the slip-on cover centered by a cameo profile bust of Charles I in armor, surrounded by an inscription and a border pierced and engraved with flowers enclosing oval reserves bearing the emblems of France and Ireland and England impaling Scotland, the latter in crowned  shield with the Royal supporters; at the top two winged angels holding a crown below a sunburst engraved "Video," all within a bead and reel rim

Asprey & Co., London, October 1984;
Vogel Collection no. 408.

Condition good
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The inscription reads “Vivat Rex, Currat Lex, Floret Grex” translated loosely as “Long Live the King, May the Law take care of, and May the Flock Flourish.” It is hard to date these unhallmarked boxes exactly. Timothy Schroder discusses the question in The Gilbert Collection of Gold and Silver, 1988 no 23. From a letter written by Thomas Knyvett to his wife on January 17, 1640, in which he requests her to send “Tobaccoe boxes with the Kings picture of silver” we know that the concept existed during his reign.  However, an identical box with maker’s mark BB was sold Sotheby’s March 3, 1983, lot 79. Schroder points out that this maker’s mark is found on hallmarked boxes of 1673, 75 and 83, suggesting a commemorative purpose for these boxes to appeal to supporters of the Stuart cause. The treatment of the flowers, however, points to an earlier date and the iconography is consistent with Charles I is obsession with Divine Right. The sunburst with the word "Video," here misunderstood by the engraver, illustrates this and it is possible to see the winged putti as angels.

A similar box was in the Albert Collection, see Robin Butler, The Albert Collection, Five Hundred Years of British and European Silver, no. 106, p.8. Two gold examples are known, one in the Gilbert Collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum, see Charles Truman, The Gilbert Collection of Gold Boxes, no.92, pp.276-7, the other sold Christie’s, London, October 19, 1988, lot 371. Another is in the Lion Collection, British Silver Boxes 1640-1840, no. 13, p. 41.