A Jewelled Gold and Guilloché Enamel Snuff Box

The present snuff box is comparable with a well-documented and frequently exhibited snuff box, which by tradition was created in response to Emperor Alexander III's challenge to Russian craftsmen to produce works equal in quality to those of French master goldsmiths of the eighteenth century. After studying a Louis XVI snuff box by Joseph Etienne Blerzy, Fabergé workmaster Michael Perchin supervised the production of a snuff box so much finer than the original that the emperor ordered both snuff boxes displayed in the Hermitage as a tribute to this remarkable achievement. See C. Forbes and R. Tromeur-Brenner, Fabergé: The Forbes Collection, New York, p. 145, illustrated. Other documented examples of Perchin's practice of incorporating eighteenth-century plaques into his designs include a yellow guilloché enamel box mounted with a plaque, depicting putti with sheep, attributed to de Mailly. See G. von Hapsburg, Fabergé: Imperial Craftsman and His World, London, 2000, p. 183, No. 413, illustrated.

An Imperial presentation snuff-box by Michael Perchin, with nearly identical decoration and applied with an oval miniature of Tsar Nicholas II, was sold Christie's New York, April 20, 2001, lot 136.