A gold and enamel snuff box, Carl Helfried Barbé, St. Petersburg, circa 1820

Carl Helfried Barbé was born in Frankenthal in South Germany in 1777 and moved to St Petersburg sometime before 1806, at which date he joined the Foreigners' Guild. He subsequently acquired Russian citizenship and became a member of the Russian Guild in 1811. Another of the very few foreign masters to become a member of the Russian Guild rather than that for Foreigners was the French gold box maker Jean-Charles Blerzy who transferred to the Russian Guild in 1811 (Alexander von Solodkoff, Russian Gold and Silver, London, 1981, p. 21). A substantial number of foreign goldsmiths had been attracted by the wealth of the Russian court since the earlier 18^th century: between 1714 and 1800, there were 234 German master goldsmiths recorded in St. Petersburg, 261 Scandinavian and 44 French bijoutiers, as well as Swiss, English and Austrian goldsmiths (von Solodkoff, op. cit., p. 21).

Although apparently somewhat less prolific than some of his contemporaries, gold boxes by Barbé can be found in several important museum collections, such as the Gilbert Collection at the Victoria & Albert Museum (inv. no. 433-2008(2009)).