Live Auction 7800Centuries of Style: Silver, European Ceramics, Portrait Miniatures and Gold Boxes
A CONTINENTAL ENAMELLED THREE-COLOUR GOLD SNUFF-BOX
Lot 310

A CONTINENTAL ENAMELLED THREE-COLOUR GOLD SNUFF-BOX

MAKER'S MARK 'LFT', PROBABLY HANAU, CIRCA 1780, WITH PRESTIGE MARKS, LATER STRUCK WITH TWO FRENCH POST-1893 IMPORT MARKS FOR GOLD AND THE PRAGUE 'GOLDREPUNZE' OF 1806 FOR MEDIUM-SIZED ITEMS

Closed17 November 2009

Price Realised

GBP 10,000

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A CONTINENTAL ENAMELLED THREE-COLOUR GOLD SNUFF-BOX
MAKER'S MARK 'LFT', PROBABLY HANAU, CIRCA 1780, WITH PRESTIGE MARKS, LATER STRUCK WITH TWO FRENCH POST-1893 IMPORT MARKS FOR GOLD AND THE PRAGUE 'GOLDREPUNZE' OF 1806 FOR MEDIUM-SIZED ITEMS
Oval box, the lid inset with an oval enamel medallion painted with a young lady in classical dress with two attendant putti garlanding an altar of Love, within a bright-cut and fluted border framed by berry border interspersed with four vari-colour gold flower-sprays on sablé ground, the panels on lid, sides and base engine-turned with coin pattern within berry and flower-spray gold borders flanked with opaque rose pompadour enamel borders, the top rim of the side chased with pink and green gold foliate swags, the four side pilasters chased with pastoral trophies of Music against opaque pink enamel ground
3¼ in. (82 mm.) wide

Sotheby's, Geneva, 19 November 1996, lot 301.

Specialist note

It has been suggested that the maker's mark 'LFT' could correspond to 'Les Frères Toussaint' in Hanau (L. Seelig, op. cit., pp. 186-7). On the basis of this research, a miniature-set enamelled gold bonbonnière marked 'LFT' in the Wallace collection, formerly attributed to 19th Century Swiss manufacture, is now believed to have been crafted in Hanau during the second half of the 18th Century (C. Truman, 'Some German Gold Boxes in the Wallace Collection', The British Antique Dealers' Association Annual Handbook 2009/2010, London, 2009, p. 11).