Live Auction 7800Centuries of Style: Silver, European Ceramics, Portrait Miniatures and Gold Boxes
A GERMAN ROCOCO GOLD-MOUNTED HARDSTONE AND VARI-COLOUR GOLD SNUFF-BOX
Lot 282

A GERMAN ROCOCO GOLD-MOUNTED HARDSTONE AND VARI-COLOUR GOLD SNUFF-BOX

BERLIN, CIRCA 1750, LATER STRUCK WITH THE VIENNESE 'GOLDREPUNZE' OF 1806 AND TWO FRENCH IMPORT MARKS FOR GOLD 1864-1893

Closed17 November 2009

Price Realised

GBP 18,750

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A GERMAN ROCOCO GOLD-MOUNTED HARDSTONE AND VARI-COLOUR GOLD SNUFF-BOX
BERLIN, CIRCA 1750, LATER STRUCK WITH THE VIENNESE 'GOLDREPUNZE' OF 1806 AND TWO FRENCH IMPORT MARKS FOR GOLD 1864-1893
Cartouche-shaped box with baluster sides, of semi-translucent brown and green moss agate, the hinged lid applied with gold reliefs and carved hardstones including rhodonite, carnelian, jasper, azurite and bloodstone depicting a still life with a bird feasting on fruits within a tree and ruin landscape accented with chased gold ground, urn, foliage and perched bird, the rose gold cagework mounts engraved with squares and flutes within bright-cut borders
1 15/16 in. (49 mm.) wide

with Galerie Jacques Kugel, Paris, 1997.

Specialist note

The present snuff-box applied with a hardstone still-life reflects the 18th Century vogue for raised stonework at the court of King Frederick II of Prussia. An opulent example of this type of snuff-box with similarly carved fruits 'en relief', once in the collection of Frederick the Great, is now in the Louvre, inv. no. OA 2142 (S. Grandjean, Catalogue des tabatières, boîtes et étuis des XVIIIe et XIXe siècles du musée du Louvre, Paris, 1981, p. 279, pl. 420 and W. Baer, Prunk-Tabatieren Friedrichs des Grossen, Munich, 1993, pp. 72-73, no. 48).