Boxes divided into two compartments are rare in Meissen porcelain and were intended for the owner to have the choice of two types of snuff; an earlier version is recorded in Kaendler's workbook, May 1733, Bl. 215 r, entry 8, Ulrich Pietsch, Die Arbeitsberichte Des Meissener Porzellan Modelleurs Johan Joachim Kaendler 1706-1775, Leipzig, 2002, p. 19. However, it is interesting to note the use of a similar box in a Mundzeug or traveling cutlery set which may have been intended for salt and pepper, see Abraham den Blaauwen, Meissen porcelain in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, 2000, pp. 348-50, cat. no. 247.