A LOUIS XVI GOLD SNUFF-BOX

Dominique-François Poitreau was born around 1725, the son of Etienne Poitreau a landscape and portrait-painter. He was apprenticed in 1741 to Pierre Ferrat and was subsequently registered as a master in 1757 under the sponsorship of the master goldsmith François Delafosse. Poitreau lived in the Cour Neuve du Palais, in what is now the Palais de Justice. He later moved to the Cour Dauphine au Palais before retiring in 1781. There are boxes by Poitreau in the Louvre, the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.