Live Auction 10398Centuries of Style: Silver, European Ceramics, Portrait Miniatures and Gold Boxes
A GERMAN ENAMELLED GOLD SNUFF-BOX
Lot 204 PROPERTY OF A LADY

A GERMAN ENAMELLED GOLD SNUFF-BOX

BY FRÈRES SOUCHAY, MARKED, HANAU, CIRCA 1780, STRUCK WITH THE HANAU TOWN MARK FOR 19 CARAT GOLD, CROWNED LETTER K RESEMBLING THE PARISIAN DATE LETTER 1773/1774 AND A MARK RESEMBLING THE PARISIAN CHARGE MARK FOR 1768-1774

Closed2 December 2015

Price Realised

GBP 8,750

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A GERMAN ENAMELLED GOLD SNUFF-BOX
BY FRÈRES SOUCHAY, MARKED, HANAU, CIRCA 1780, STRUCK WITH THE HANAU TOWN MARK FOR 19 CARAT GOLD, CROWNED LETTER K RESEMBLING THE PARISIAN DATE LETTER 1773/1774 AND A MARK RESEMBLING THE PARISIAN CHARGE MARK FOR 1768-1774
oval box, the cover, sides and base set with panels of translucent raspberry-coloured enamel over an engine-turned ground, within opaque white enamel frames and slightly raised green enamel leaf borders stamped at intervals with flowerheads and opaque white enamel chevrons, the cover centred with an oval enamel plaque depicting a boy musician and his dog within a chased and reeded gold frame with green enamel foliate border
2½ in. (65 mm.) wide

Specialist note

The brothers Esay (1723-1791) and Marc André Souchay (1730-1811) came from one of Hanau's Huguenot families of bijouteries, French speaking Huguenot jewellers who had been attracted to Hanau by the privileges and financial incentives extended by Prince Regent William, later Landgrave William VIII, to anyone who was willing to set up in business in Hanau. By the early 1770s Etienne Flamant, an expert guillocheur originally from Geneva, signed a contract with the leading Hanau goldsmiths for them to supply him with around 385 to 430 gold boxes for decoration every year. Les Frères Souchay agreed to supply him with 120 boxes, which gives some indication of the scale of gold box production in Hanau at this time.