A Meissen porcelain fond celadon snuff box with gold mounts, circa 1740
Auction Closed
December 10, 02:29 PM GMT
Estimate
10,000 - 15,000 GBP
Lot Details
Description
A Meissen porcelain fond celadon snuff box with gold mounts, circa 1740
of upright circular form, carved with raised cartouches, painted with pairs of figures and characters from the Commedia dell'arte, edged in gilt, the lower part with smaller panels painted in Purpurmalerei with solitary figures, the interior of the cover with lovers, the box interior richly gilt, the reeded gold mounts with shell thumbpiece
5.3cm., 2 1/8 in. diameter
Anonymous, sale Christie's, London, 30 September 1991, lot 296
Beaucamp-Markowsky, Boîtes en Porcelaine des manufactures europèenes au 18e siècle, Fribourg, 1985, no. 85
Interestingly, this shape with raised parts to the sides can also be found on a number of slightly earlier gold-mounted hardstones boxes, such as an example of caramel-coloured agate by the Parisian gold box maker Nicolas Bouillerot (active 1720-1754), struck with the discharge mark of Jacques Cottin for 1726-1732, in a French private collection (see Sophie Mouquin, Agate, Jasper and Sardonyx: Gemstones in French Mineralogical Collections of the Eighteenth Century, in Alexis Kugel: 'Gold, Jasper and Carnelian, Johann Christian Neuber at the Saxon Court', London, 2012, p. 75). Another similar example, also struck with the discharge mark of Jacques Cottin, was sold at Replica Shoes 's London, 22 May 2019, lot 509. Both gold boxes are of similar size to the gold-mounted porcelain example made in Meissen about a decade after this shape had been fashionable in Paris.