A1331|1|1|Drinking horn, made out of the horn of a bull, the surface of which has been carved in low relief with leaves and interlaced scrolls; silver rim at the mouth with leaf-shaped edge slightly engraved; fragment of a silver ornament at the middle. It is inscribed round the mouth:<br><br>S · MJOD - D · A · MINNID<br>(‘Mead to the memory’, i.e., ‘we drink the health in mead’)<br><br>The letter S, if not the owner's monogram, might be for ‘Ská l’, the usual cry at the drinking of healths in the Northlands.<br><br>Icelandic (?), 14th century.<br><br>The silver of the rim bears a small mark; a Dutch tax-discharge mark used after 1814 (Rosenborg (3), no. 7553).
G1|1|1|This box has traditionally been ascribed to France, but more recent research has indicated that most boxes of this type were produced in Naples, which was something of a centre for pique work. The architect Robert Adam bought three ‘very handsome snuff-boxes of yellow and black tortoiseshell studded with gold’ while in Naples in 1755. In 1771 Lady Anne Miller wrote ‘this city [Naples] is famous for a manufacture in tortoiseshell which they inlay curiously with gold, and are very ingenious at representing any object you choose’.<br>The pattern of the decoration derives from silks, probably woven in Genoa, dated to around 1730-50. A similar scheme was also used in an English wallpaper that originally hung in the Queen’s Drawing Room at Hampton Court Palace in about 1735.<br>Boxes in turtleshell enjoyed much popularity in France during the period when the use of gold was controlled by sumptuary laws during the first two decades of the eighteenth century but the fashion for piqué continued until much later in Naples.
G2|1|1|This crab-shell shaped box is set at the top and bottom with two hardstone panels of figured brown agate. These areas are without a gold lining, no doubt intentionally, so that the beauty of the translucent stone can be revealed. The bombé sides are highlighted with red and white enamel scrolls, pink flowers and green leaves, in very delicate contrast to the boldness of the agate.<br>French snuffboxes incorporating panels of hardstone dating from the first half of the eighteenth century are comparatively rare but became more popular in the middle of the century. Madame de Pompadour is known to have had eighteen hardstone snuffboxes at her death in 1764. The enamels on this box have been associated with an enameller named Joaguet, about whom not much is known except that he supplied snuffboxes formed of agate plaques, of carnelain and other hard stones, mounted in gold in exquisite taste, the mounts enamelled in relief showing little flowers depicted naturally.<br>Other boxes, such as one in the State Hermitage Museum by an unnamed maker dating to Paris 1736-37, and one by Jean–Louis Lacour, 1740-42 in the Louvre, are enamelled in a style very similar to this box, and are all thought to be associated with Joaquet. The enamellers are often forgotten as they did not mark their work (unlike goldsmiths who had to register their marks with the cour des Monnaies) but in the 18th century work by Joaquet appears to have been highly regarded.<br>Snuffboxes played an important role in fashion and self-promotion, in diplomacy and, in the 19th century, in collecting. Often they were used as a currency for their monetary values and the status they could embody. Their practical purpose was often secondary – they were highly valued as art objects in their own right. Gold boxes were a barometer of the taste of the time and exemplify the skills of not only goldsmiths, but also enamellers, lapidaries and miniature painters.
G3|1|1|The Maltese cross with undulating lines radiating outwards and the side panels of basketwork decoration on this box are all engine turned.<br>The art of ornamental turning on a lathe (‘rose engine turning’) had been well established in Europe certainly since the late fifteenth century, principally on softer materials such as wood, ivory or horn. The use of an ornamental turning lathe to decorate precious metal would appear to have been a late seventeenth-century development. It is unlikely that Pierre Croissant, the goldsmith who marked this box, would have carried out this kind of decoration himself, but he would probably have sent it to a specialist turner. We know little about who these men were, but the names of Gorin, Girod and Blanchett survive. In the eighteenth century turning was still considered a princely pastime: Peter the Great of Russia, Louis XVI of France and George III of Great Britain were all keen turners.<br>Snuffboxes played an important role in fashion and self-promotion, in diplomacy and, in the 19th century, in collecting. Often they were used as a currency for their monetary values and the status they could embody. Although used for snuff-taking, their practical purpose was often secondary – they were highly valued as art objects in their own right. Gold boxes were a barometer of the taste of the time and exemplify the skills of not only goldsmiths, but also enamellers, lapidaries and miniature painters.
G4|1|1|This scallop-shaped snuffbox is one of the most striking boxes in the Wallace Collection. Enamelled with radiating peacock feathers, when opened the lid displays the full peacock’s tail in full upright glory, unlike most snuffboxes which when opened show the lid’s decoration upside down.<br>The box was one of many owned by the duc d’Aumont, the First Gentleman of the Bedchamber to King Louis XV and well known as a connoisseur of art. Valued at 360 livres on the duc’s death, it actually sold for more than double the estimated value which indicates that the box must have been recognised, even in 1782, as a great example of goldsmith’s work, although the fashion for boxes of this shape had long since passed.<br>The enameller of the superb and delicate peacock feathers is sadly unknown. Ducrollay is known to have employed several enamellers to decorate his boxes. Some signed their work, or worked in a style that was recognisable to their contemporaries, including Le Sueur, Hamelin, Liot and Aubert, but the style of this particular enamelled work defies attribution. None of these craftsmen is known to have been working as early as 1744 and the only enameller whose name is known from this period is the elusive Joaguet (see G2) but the style of enamelling attributed to him does not correspond to that on this box. It is however, a tour de force of the enameller’s art which has contributed to the creation of one of the most spectacular, and arguably the most famous, gold box of the eighteenth century.<br>Snuffboxes played an important role in fashion and self-promotion, in diplomacy and, in the nineteenth century, in collecting. Often they were used as a currency for their monetary values and the status they could embody. Their practical purpose was often secondary — they were highly valued as art objects in their own right. Gold boxes were a barometer of the taste of the time and exemplify the skills of not only goldsmiths, but also enamellers, lapidaries and miniature painters.
G5|1|1|A varicoloured gold snuffbox with six enamelled plaques depicting, on the cover, a lady playing a lyre with a putto playing a recorder and, on the base, a lady at her toilette accompanied by a maid. The blue and gold-flecked background is in imitation of lapis lazuli, which was a decorative technique used on snuffboxes at least as early as 1761 and which was representative of the increasing interest of the Neoclassical taste in Antique hardstones.<br>The scenes on the plaques around the side of the box are probably derived from engravings after François Boucher, such as those published by Pierre Aveline in 1738, those by Jean Daullé in 1748 and of Louis-Felix de La Rue in the mid-1740s. However, the putti lack the softness of Boucher and may be compositions of the anonymous enameller.
G7|1|1|The Japanese lacquer with which this box is decorated has been identified as dating from the second half of the seventeenth century. The gold cagework bears what appear to be spurious hallmarks, including that of an unidentified goldsmith which is also found on at least three other known snuffboxes which also bear spurious hallmarks. This suggests that a group of boxes was made in the nineteenth century purporting to be by a hitherto unknown Parisian goldsmith. Inside the lid is a miniature depicting Princess Marie-Josèphe of Saxony, Dauphine of France (1731-67) which appears to be a copy of a lost portrait by Maurice-Quentin de la Tour (1704-88) of 1747/8. It seems likely that the box was made as a vehicle for an earlier miniature, a fashionable conceit in the early nineteenth century.<br>The presence of a card behind the miniature inscribed ‘A Monsieur Vachette/Joaillier-Bijoutier is intriguing. Adrien-Jean-Maximilien Vachette, to whom it refers, was a well-respected Parisian goldsmith (active 1779-1839). He may have added the miniature to an existing box, or the box may have been made by one of his contemporaries, which seems more likely.
G8|1|1|This striking box is decorated with so-called 'chinoiserie' scenes in translucent blue enamel on every side. Enamellers in the eighteenth century often took their decorative schemes from print sources and on this box each scene can be identified as being a scene after François Boucher. Boucher’s highly-stylised scenes of Chinese life were engraved by Gabriel Huquier ('Scènes de La Vie Chinoise'), published in 1742, and by Pierre Aveline ('Les Quatre Eléments'), published in 1740. There have been some adaptations from the print source to the box, to make allowances for space and orientation, but otherwise the scenes are fairly true to the original engravings. The lid is after 'La pêche au cormorant'; that on the base after 'Flûtiste et enfant timbalier'; on the front, a child from 'Le carillon'; on the right-hand side, a child from 'La toilette'; on the left-hand side, a child from 'Chinoise assise tenant un plat, entourée d’enfant et de servantes'.<br>The goldsmith of this box, Hubert Cheval, had a son who was also an enameller and goldsmith. The son used the name Hubert-Louis Cheval de St Hubert and registered his mark as a goldsmith in 1751. It seems highly probable that Hubert Cheval would have used his son, even before he attained the mâitrise as a goldsmith, to enamel boxes that he made and therefore this box might have been decorated by Hubert-Louis Cheval de St Hubert.<br>Snuffboxes played an important role in fashion and self-promotion, in diplomacy and, in the nineteenth century, in collecting. Often they were used as a currency for their monetary values and the status they could embody. Their practical purpose was often secondary – they were highly valued as art objects in their own right. Gold boxes were a barometer of the taste of the time and exemplify the skills of not only goldsmiths, but also enamellers, lapidaries and miniature painters.
G10|1|1|Of similar construction to G18, this bonbonnière would have been affordable to a wider audience than the gold snuffboxes on display here. An advertisement by the marchand mercier (dealer) Charles-Raymond Granchez who ran the shop ‘Le Petit Dunkerque’ , appeared in a Parisian newspaper of 1772 and mentioned ‘snuffboxes in card lined with turtleshell’, which would appear to have been similar to this box.<br>The top and bottom are painted with fair scenes after engravings by Moreau le jeune (1741-1814) created to illustrate a song book ('Choix de Chansons') by Benjamin De La Borde, a Valet of the King’s Bedchamber, which was published in 1773 and dedicated to the dauphine, Marie Antoinette. The scene on the top represents the anonymous 'La foire de Gonésse' where the mountebank is peddling medicines and elixirs, and on the bottom 'Le départ de Lucile'.<br>The apparent absence of hallmarks on this box may suggest that the mounts are later than they might seem, as it is very rare indeed to find goldsmiths’ work without any kind of hallmark produced in Paris in the eighteenth century. However, the mounts here are minimal and may have been marked in an area which is no longer visible.
G11|1|1|This oval snuffbox is made from papier-mâché covered in probably gold (though possibly silver) foil. It has then been varnished with gold coloured shellac (a resin secreted by the female lac beetle). The images of landscapes round the edge and a group of a gentleman and two ladies in conversation on the front have been painted on in oils, to give the impression of a gold snuffbox with enamel images. The inside of the box is lined with turtleshell.<br>The original mount on this box has been replaced by a simple plain gold bezel, which is stamped with the mark of Paris, 1819-38.<br>The author Diderot, in his 'Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers' ['Encyclopaedia, or a Systematic Dictionary of the Sciences, Arts, and Crafts'] refers to this type of box as 'tabatière en carton' [snuffbox in cardboard], where he mentions in great detail the manufacture of the boxes using papier-mâché and varnishes. Although this box would have appealed to many in the 18th century, the material used, and the relatively small amount of precious material used suggests that it might have been bought by the less wealthy members of society.<br>Snuffboxes played an important role in fashion and self-promotion, in diplomacy and, in the 19th century, in collecting. Often they were used as a currency for their monetary values and the status they could embody. Their practical purpose was often secondary – they were highly valued as art objects in their own right. Gold boxes were a barometer of the taste of the time and exemplify the skills of not only goldsmiths, but also enamellers, lapidaries and miniature painters.
G12|1|1|The use of the agate panels, and the treatment of the gold, both point towards Germany, probably Dresden, as the source of this box. The inclusion of a detachable inner lid is untypical of Parisian snuffboxes, but is frequently found in tobacco boxes. The inner lid would typically have prevented moisture from the tobacco evaporating, although this one is supported on gold pillars which would have negated this feature. Also, it is smaller than the conventional tobacco box, and it may be that it was a specially commissioned piece made to the unusual requirements of the patron. A small number of gold-covered pills, believed to date from the eighteenth century, have been found in the box which might suggest that it was used for medication and not tobacco. The composition of the pills remains a mystery.<br>The charming entwined dolphins forming the handle of the inner lid are unlikely to be an allusion to a dauphin of France, as the use of dolphins had by this date become quite a common decorative motif. The box has no gold lining so the exquisite figuring of the pale translucent agate can be clearly seen.
G13|1|1|Notwithstanding the charm of the scenes on this box, it is clear that the gold cagework of the box and the engraved panels, enamelled in translucent blue, are not stylistically compatible, with the cagework being in a strict Neoclassical taste whilst the panels display a Rococo spirit rather in the manner of Boucher. Moreover, the marks on the box appear to imitate French marks that would date the box to 1751-2, but the Neoclassical decoration of the enamel borders would appear to be improbably early for that date. The maker’s mark is in imitation of that used by Pierre-Etienne Buron (fl. 1735-after 1766) and it is possible that the box was made in Paris in the early nineteenth century when the pre-Revolutionary system of marking gold was still relatively fresh in the minds of many goldsmiths. The possibility of a Russian provenance, where there was a plentiful supply of gold boxes with Paris marks to copy from, should not be excluded.<br>The panels depict figures in landscapes: for example, on the cover two shepherdesses and a shepherd are entertained by another playing a flute, while on the base a shepherd flirts with a shepherdess whilst another looks on in the background.
G14|1|1|Jean Frémin was the son of a goldsmith and therefore did not have to be apprenticed; it is assumed he learnt his skill in his father’s workshop. He became master in 1738 and during his career moved through the ranks of the goldsmiths’ guild, being elected Prime Warden in 1779.<br>This box is a rare example of an enameller signing his name on the decoration. The signature ‘LE Sueur’ is on the arch of the bridge depicted on the lid. Le Sueur has yet to be positively identified. Enamels signed ‘Le Sueur’ are often found on boxes dated between 1750 and 1761, from the workshops of Jean Frémin and Jean Ducrollay.<br>The box has been enamelled en plein (enamel applied directly onto the gold) with six pastoral scenes, or reserves bordered by translucent blue strapwork intertwined with translucent green foliage and opaque enamel flowers. The ground is chased with a diaper (diamond) pattern. The scene on the cover is of a shepherd seated on a bridge playing bagpipes to a girl with a small dog on a leash. The source for this subject is now thought to be a design by Mongenor, after Francois Boucher’s Musique Pastorale. Though there are many designs signed or inscribed with his name, Mongenor’s identity is still unknown.<br>Snuffboxes played an important role in fashion and self-promotion, in diplomacy and, in the 19th century, in collecting. Often they were used as a currency for their monetary values and the status they could embody. Their practical purpose was often secondary – they were highly valued as art objects in their own right. Gold boxes were a barometer of the taste of the time and exemplify the skills of not only goldsmiths, but also enamellers, lapidaries and miniature painters.
G15|1|1|The absence of any hallmarks makes this scent-bottle case unlikely to be French as has previously been suggested. The closest parallel are English, London-made watch-cases. A delightful, if idiosyncratic, aspect of the enamel decoration is that flowers such as roses, curiously blue daffodils and forget-me-nots all grow from the same stem.<br>The bloodstone seal matrix on the base, with its engraved monogram ‘MHM’ beneath an English marquess’s coronet, is a later addition and the most obvious interpretation is that this was put on, perhaps as a replacement, for a Marquess of Hertford. Rather than housing sealing wax, however, the case would originally have contained a velvet lining and a glass scent-bottle, both of which are now missing.
G16|1|1|The scene on the cover shows Apollo as a shepherd playing his pipe while guarding the herds of Admetus, after an engraving by Sébastien Le Clerc (1637–1714). The same subject is depicted by Claude Lorrain (1604–1682) in his painting 'Landscape with Apollo and Mercury' in the Wallace Collection (P114).<br>The diamonds which embellish this box seem to fall into two different periods, both of which perhaps date from after the manufacture of the box itself. They may have been set in Germany or possibly Poland; the first additions appear to be the diamonds on the cover, probably from the 1770s, and the second alteration is the addition of the diamond-encrusted thumbpiece, probably from the beginning of the nineteenth century.<br>Those diamonds used on the cover to enhance the architectural setting have two comparison boxes, one in the Rosalind and Arthur Gilbert Collection at the Victoria & Albert Museum, which has the makers letter PAG and may have been used by Pierre Aldebert Griot in Berlin dating to 1768. The other is also in the Victoria & Albert’s Collection, also thought to be probably from 1770 Berlin.<br>The thumbpiece on this box is made of flowers and leaves, this may have been added around 1800, and set in possibly Germany or Poland. There is a nineteenth-century Cracow mark that shows the box was in the city in 1806–7, and a French import mark shows it had been outside France until at least after 1838 and before 1864 at the latest.<br>Snuffboxes played an important role in fashion and self-promotion, in diplomacy and, in the nineteenth century, in collecting. Often they were used as a currency for their monetary values and the status they could embody. Their practical purpose was often secondary — they were highly valued as art objects in their own right. Gold boxes were a barometer of the taste of the time and exemplify the skills of not only goldsmiths, but also enamellers, lapidaries and miniature painters.
G17|1|1|This box appears, on the surface, to be French in origin but a closer look at the marks and the decoration, particularly the enamel, may suggest otherwise. The scenes on the cover and base are taken from John Ingram’s engravings after François Boucher of ‘La bonne mère’, ‘L’école domestique’ and ‘La jardinière’, which were published in the early 1740s. However, the enamel colours are untypical of those used in Paris in the eighteenth century and are closer to those found on some German boxes. Moreover, the goldsmith’s mark does not appear to be that of any recorded Paris craftsman. It is clearly not that of René-Jean Lemoyne, who in any case did not register his mark until 1775, but it seems to be an imitation of it.<br>Given that this box was in the possession of Prince Anatole Demidoff, one of the greatest collectors of the nineteenth century, a Russian origin dating from the first half of that century does not seem unlikely.
G18|1|1|This box is made of papier maché which has been covered in a metal foil, and stamped with a trellis and scroll decoration. This has been varnished with gold coloured shellac (a resin secreted by the female Lac beetle), to give the impression of a gold snuffbox with enamel images. It has been painted in oils with pheasants and other game and exotic birds, and a scrolling gold thumbpiece has been added. The box is lined with turtleshell.<br>While the subject matter would have had a universal appeal in eighteenth-century France, the material used in its construction - with the gold content being confined to the simple mounts - suggests that boxes of this type would have been bought and used by less wealthy members of society.<br>The bird painting is reminiscent of the exotic birds painted on Sèvres porcelain in the 1750s, examples of which can be found in the Back State Room on the Ground Floor.<br>The author Diderot in his 'Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers' ['Encyclopaedia, or a Systematic Dictionary of the Sciences, Arts, and Crafts'] refers to this type of box as a 'tabatière en carton' ['snuffbox in cardboard'], where he mentions in great detail the manufacture of the boxes using papier-mâché and varnishes.<br>Snuffboxes played an important role in fashion and self-promotion, in diplomacy and, in the 19th century, in collecting. Often they were used as a currency for their monetary values and the status they could embody. Their practical purpose was often secondary – they were highly valued as art objects in their own right. Gold boxes were a barometer of the taste of the time and exemplify the skills of not only goldsmiths, but also enamellers, lapidaries and miniature painters.
G19|1|1|Jean Ducrollay became a master goldsmith in 1734 and went on to produce some of the most celebrated gold boxes of the middle of the 18th century, His name features frequently in the accounts of the Menus Plaisirs (a royal department) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a supplier of diplomatic gifts.<br>The enamel on the cover is a scene taken from an engraving after François Boucher of L’Ecole doméstique. The enameller has created an altogether grander interior to replace the setting of Boucher’s original scene, and has included some additional details: these include the spaniel lying on the lady’s lap, the upturned porcelain tea-bowls on saucers on the chimney-piece and a landscape painting hanging on a damask wall covering. The enamels on the base and front are also very much in the style of Boucher but no exact model has been identified.<br>A sketch book of designs by Ducrollay and two other goldsmiths, Pierre-François Drais (1726-88) and Louis Ouizille (fl. 1768-about 1790) exists in the Victoria & Albert Museum in which similar symmetrical scrolling cartouches enclosing enamelled reserves appear.<br>The signature ‘Le Sueur’ can be seen on the lid in the bottom right reserve just above the cat. The identity of Le Sueur has yet to be positively identified. Enamels signed ‘Le Suer’ are found on boxes dated between 1750 and 1761, from the workshops of Jean Frémin and Jean Ducrollay.<br><br>Snuffboxes played an important role in fashion and self-promotion, in diplomacy and, in the 19th century, in collecting. Often they were used as a currency for their monetary values and the status they could embody. Their practical purpose was often secondary – they were highly valued as art objects in their own right. Gold boxes were a barometer of the taste of the time and exemplify the skills of not only goldsmiths, but also enamellers, lapidaries and miniature painters.
G20|1|1|The enamelled reserves on this box contain scenes of children and domestic life, all taken from works by or after François Boucher. The image on the lid of the box is after 'Le petit ménage', a drawing now in the Albertina in Vienna and that on the base, of a young woman and a child building a house of cards, is after 'Le châeau de cartes', in a private collection. Both subjects were engraved, but in the opposite sense, so it is possible that the enameller worked either from the drawings themselves or sketches of them.<br>The child in the scene on the back of the box has been taken from John Ingram's engraving after Boucher’s 'La Crèmerie', and Pierre Soubeyran's engraving after Boucher's 'La belle Villageoise' is the source for the child on the right hand side.<br>Snuffboxes played an important role in fashion and self-promotion, diplomacy and, in the 19th century, in collecting. Often they were used as a currency for their monetary values and the status they could embody. Their practical purpose was often secondary – they were highly valued as art objects in their own right. Gold boxes were a barometer of the taste of the time and exemplify the skills of not only goldsmiths, but also enamellers, lapidaries and miniature painters.
G21|1|1|The most unusual thing about this box is its shape, which has puzzled scholars for years. At one time it was thought to represent a type of carriage: Casanova’s memoires tell us how he once hired a carriage of the type referred to as ‘a chamber pot’. Other suggestions have been a coal scuttle or a hip-bath, but it is now generally considered to represent a close stool. Rather an odd idea for a gold box, perhaps, and one wonders what kind of message that it was meant to give out. However, the shape is not unique and at least one other gold box like this is known.<br>Snuffboxes played an important role in fashion and self-promotion, diplomacy and, in the 19th century, in collecting. Often they were used as a currency for their monetary values and the status they could embody. Their practical purpose was often secondary – they were highly valued as art objects in their own right. Gold boxes were a barometer of the taste of the time and exemplify the skills of not only goldsmiths, but also enamellers, lapidaries and miniature painters.
G23|1|1|This oval gold snuffbox is enamelled en plein (enamel applied directly onto the surface of the box) in opaque colours with genre scenes of urban life and trade. Each scene is bordered by chased scrolls and flowers in blue with foliage in green translucent enamel.<br>The unknown enameller has used a wide variety of sources for the scenes that decorate this box. The scenes are after eight different engravings of subjects by five artists that would have been well-known to an 18th-century French patron. On the top is La Place Maubert, engraved by Jacques Aliamet (1726-1788) after Étienne Jeaurat (1699-1789); on the back La Ravaudeuse (the stocking mender) and the front La Charbonniere (the charcoal seller) engraved by Ravenet the Elder (1706-1774) after Charles-Nicolas Cochin (1715-1790); and the ends are from two series of Les Cris de Paris, with Au Vinaigre (the vinegar seller) engraved by Ravenet after François Boucher (1703-1770) and Gagne-Petit Auvernat (the knife grinder) by Edmé Bouchardon (1698 -1762).<br>Hidden on the base is the most extraordinary scene of all, with a cobbler working at his trade while his wife calls to a passing lottery man. It shows the inventiveness of the anonymous enameller because the scene is a composite of three different engraved sources, after two artists, from two countries, over two centuries: the cobbler is from Le Sifleur de Linôte engraved by J.-P. Le Bas (1707-1783) after the Flemish 17th-century painter David Teniers the Younger (1610-1690), his wife is from Pommes cuites au four (the hot potato seller) and the lottery man from La liste des gagnans de la lotterie (the caller of the lottery results), both after Bouchardon’s Les cris de Paris.<br>Snuffboxes played an important role in fashion and self-promotion, diplomacy and, in the 19th century, in collecting. Often they were used as a currency for their monetary values and the status they could embody. Although they were used for snuff-taking, their practical purpose was often secondary – they were highly valued as art objects in their own right. Gold boxes were a barometer of the taste of the time and exemplify the skills of not only goldsmiths, but also enamellers, lapidaries and miniature painters.
G25|1|1|Perhaps the type of box known as a ‘boïte de chasse’ (hunting box), this would have been most appropriate for use following a day’s hunting, which was a favoured past-time of many of the aristocracy and particularly of Louis XV. The scenes on the cover and sides depict hunting dogs or game in various ways and are closely related to paintings by Jean-Baptiste Oudry (1686-1755) and possibly Alexandre-François Desportes (1661-1743). On the top three hounds attack a fox, a scene taken from Oudry’s ‘Vanquished Fox’, a painting originally commissioned for the Guard Room at the château of Chantilly and later engraved. The scene on the left-hand side is derived from Oudry’s rendering of a stag hunt in his illustration of a fable of La Fontaine, while that on the front from a boar hunt by him. Other dogs on the box appear to derive ultimately from paintings by Desportes of hunting dogs from the royal kennels.<br>The use of different coloured golds increases the three-dimensional effect of the scenes, the colours being made of alloys whereby silver is added to make a white or green gold, copper to make a pink or red gold and iron to make a yellow gold.<br>Snuffboxes played an important role in fashion and self-promotion, diplomacy and, in the 19th century, in collecting. Often they were used as a currency for their monetary values and the status they could embody. Their practical purpose was often secondary – they were highly valued as art objects in their own right. Gold boxes were a barometer of the taste of the time and exemplify the skills of not only goldsmiths, but also enamellers, lapidaries and miniature painters.
G26|1|1|A rectangular, varicoloured gold snuffbox with six reserves enclosed by foliage, shells and scroll ornament. The reserves contain charming pastoral scenes and motifs, such as the standoff between the dog and bird on the cover, or the cockerel and hen with their chicks in a farmyard on the base. On all the reserves the scenes have been set against a chased background of horizontal striations. A full palette of four colours of gold has been used: red, yellow, green and white.<br>The maker of this box, Jean-Marie Tiron, used two different marks at different points in his career, one mark registered in 1748 and one registered on 11 December 1761. It is thought that the second mark was registered when he took over Jean Ducrollay's workshop as both Jean Ducrollay and his brother Jean-Claude Ducrollay surrendered their marks the next day.<br>Snuffboxes played an important role in fashion and self-promotion, diplomacy and, in the 19th century, in collecting. Often they were used as a currency for their monetary values and the status they could embody. Their practical purpose was often secondary – they were highly valued as art objects in their own right. Gold boxes were a barometer of the taste of the time and exemplify the skills of not only goldsmiths, but also enamellers, lapidaries and miniature painters.
G27|1|1|The scenes of children playing at soldiers is a reminder that France was at the height of the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763) when this box was made. Here the children rise at dawn (as indicated by the golden rays of sun forming the background), emerge from their tent, put on their armour and prepare for battle. A similar scene to that on the cover occurs on another box in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York also by Jean George, presumably suggesting that there was a common print source for the design, or that the same man is repsonsible for the chasing. This rectangular varicoloured gold snuffbox chased with six scenes of children<br>Snuffboxes played an important role in fashion and self-promotion, diplomacy and, in the 19th century, in collecting. Often they were used as a currency for their monetary values and the status they could embody. Their practical purpose was often secondary – they were highly valued as art objects in their own right. Gold boxes were a barometer of the taste of the time and exemplify the skills of not only goldsmiths, but also enamelers, lapidaries and miniature painters.
G28|1|1|The six enamelled reserves on this box show still life scenes of dead game and hunting accoutrements. These are flanked either side with four further reserves painted in imitation moss agate. The chased gadroon borders are enamelled in dark green, with stylised shells above and below the reserves.<br>Both P.-J Bellanger and P.-J Briceau registered the same mark, with no differentiating symbol. Bellanger is described as a marchand-orfèvre in the Almanac of 1791 which might indicate that he may have made gold boxes, while Briceau, who is described as an orfèvre-joaillier, may have been more of a jeweller than a gold box maker. However, he may have been related to the Briceau who published a suite of designs for imitation moss agates, such as those found on fashionable gold boxes.<br>Snuffboxes played an important role in fashion and self-promotion, diplomacy and, in the 19th century, in collecting. Often they were used as a currency for their monetary values and the status they could embody. Their practical purpose was often secondary – they were highly valued as art objects in their own right. Gold boxes were a barometer of the taste of the time and exemplify the skills of not only goldsmiths, but also enamellers, lapidaries and miniature painters.
G29|1|1|The scene on the cover, of a man and a woman eating at a table in a rustic interior, is taken from” L'Enfant Prodigue”, engraved by Jacques-Philippe Le Bas after a painting by David Teniers the Younger (1610-1690) of 1644. The other scenes are unidentified but also recall Flemish genre scenes.<br>There are a large number of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century marks on this box, suggesting it has changed hands and been altered many times.<br>The box has been enamelled en plein (enamel applied directly onto the box) with six reserves depicting domestic genre scenes, all bordered by chased intertwined ribbon pattern (guilloche) with a hatched background. The interior of the lid has an added sheet of gold, held in place by a sprung rim, presumably replacing a miniature. The interior of the box is gold but of different standards.<br>Snuffboxes played an important role in fashion and self-promotion, diplomacy and, in the 19th century, in collecting. Often they were used as a currency for their monetary values and the status they could embody. Although used for snuff-taking, their practical purpose was often secondary – they were highly valued as art objects in their own right. Gold boxes were a barometer of the taste of the time and exemplify the skills of not only goldsmiths, but also enamellers, lapidaries and miniature painters.
G30|1|1|The subjects that decorate this box are largely taken from engravings after François Boucher, but translated from the rural exteriors of the originals to rustic interiors. On the lid, the artist has depicted the shepherdess with a sheep, which might, even in the eighteenth century, be considered unusual in a domestic interior. The scene on the front derives from 'Le sommeil interrompu' (Interrupted Sleep), although it has been translated indoors and depicted in the opposite sense: this painting by Boucher of 1750 was in the collection of Mme de Pompadour in her chateau of Bellevue.<br>The source for the cover is “Ce Pasteur amoureux chante sur sa musette”, and that on the base is “Ne plaignons point le sort de ces bergers”. Both are after engravings of “Les Amours Pastorales” by Claude Duflos after Boucher, printed in 1742.<br>Snuffboxes played an important role in fashion and self-promotion, diplomacy and, in the 19th century, in collecting. Often they were used as a currency for their monetary values and the status they could embody. Their practical purpose was often secondary – they were highly valued as art objects in their own right. Gold boxes were a barometer of the taste of the time and exemplify the skills of not only goldsmiths, but also enamellers, lapidaries and miniature painters.
G31|1|1|This is a rare example of Sèvres porcelain plaques remaining in their original box and the Greek-key pattern border is an early example of Ducrollay’s Neoclassicism. The plaques, with a turquoise-blue (bleu céleste) ground and two cherub scenes after François Boucher (1703-1770), were probably bought by the dealer Madame Duvaux for 360 livres in 1759. She would have commissioned Ducrollay to mount them in gold, and the final price for the box was probably about 1,344 livres.<br>The design for the gold borders of the box is in the Ducrollay, Drais and Ouizille design book in the Victoria & Albert Museum.<br>The first owner of the box was the duchesse de Castropignano, a lady-in-waiting to the Queen of Spain, to whom it was given by Louis XV.<br>The Sèvres panels have gilding with an irregular diaper (diamond) pattern surrounding six reserves each one representing Music, Poetry, Theatre and Love. The interior of the box is gold.<br>The Sèvres factory made porcelain plaques that could be bought ready to be mounted into furniture or snuffboxes. “Plaques de tabatière” [Snuffbox plaques] first appear in the factory records in February 1754, and continued to be produced in large numbers until the late 1750’s. Generally the cost for six plaques was 360 livres, though they could range between 288 livres and 600 livres. Only three snuffboxes with blue celeste ground were sold at Sèvres. It is known that Mme Duvaux, wife of the dealer Lazare Duvaux bought two.<br>Snuffboxes played an important role in fashion and self-promotion, diplomacy and, in the 19th century, in collecting. Often they were used as a currency for their monetary values and the status they could embody. Their practical purpose was often secondary – they were highly valued as art objects in their own right. Gold boxes were a barometer of the taste of the time and exemplify the skills of not only goldsmiths, but also enamellers, lapidaries and miniature painters.
G32|1|1|Most unusually, there is a signature on the enamel of the lid of this box, referring to an accomplished enamellist, Hamelin. Boxes with enamels signed by him are exceedingly rare and his style is quite distinctive, with rather loosely painted ‘blousey’ flowers, fruit in bowls or baskets, frequently supported on stone ledges, or tied with ribbons, and depicted on a dark, greyish ground. Like this box, two others with reserves by Hamelin are known to be the work of the goldsmith Ducrollay, which suggests that Hamelin regularly worked for him. However, Hamelin’s enamels are also found on other goldsmiths’ boxes, illustrating how artists worked independently and were hired by goldsmiths for specific commissions.<br>Unfortunately nothing more is known about this accomplished artist, but he may have been the son of Nicolas Hamelin, a goldsmith registered in Paris between 1719 and 1752 who may also have been an enameller.<br>The six plaques mounted into the varicoloured gold box depict fruit and flowers. Each plaque has been framed with chased foliage and flowers in red and green gold on a matt ground. These have then been mounted “en cage” (the setting of panels into a cagework gold box frame) in gold chased with ovals and pellets and rosettes in the corners. The interior of the box is gold.<br>The fact that the plaques have been set in gold frames is unusual, it suggests that they were mounted into the gold box at a later date, perhaps at the time of the countermark of Jean-Jacques Prévost, 1762-1768.<br>The three other boxes with signed enamels by Hamelin are in the Taft Museum, Cincinnatti, the Gilbert Collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum, and in a private collection.<br>Snuffboxes played an important role in fashion and self-promotion, diplomacy and, in the 19th century, in collecting. Often they were used as a currency for their monetary values and the status they could embody. Their practical purpose was often secondary – they were highly valued as art objects in their own right. Gold boxes were a barometer of the taste of the time and exemplify the skills of not only goldsmiths, but also enamellers, lapidaries and miniature painters.
G33|1|1|This oval varicoloured gold box has been chased with six pastoral scenes, on a striated background, bordered by shells, scrolls and foliage. The interior of the box is gold.<br>At least one of the rustic scenes decorating this box,that on the top, has an engraving as its source: one from 1739 by Jean Daullé (1703-1763) after Le joueur de musette by Jaques Dumont le Romain (1704-1781). Here the Savoyard puppeteer entertains two children by using his foot to make a pair of puppets dance on a board in time to the music he is playing on his bagpipes.<br>Somewhat confusingly two goldsmiths used the same mark at the same time in Paris. The registered mark of Dubos, the maker of this box, included the initials ‘JCD’ and a heart, as did that of Jean-Charles Ducrollay, registered seven years later. However, it is unlikely that Ducrollay ever used his goldsmith’s mark since he worked in the celebrated workshop of his brother, Jean, and all boxes from this workshop appear to have been struck only with the marks ‘JD’ and a heart.<br>Snuffboxes played an important role in fashion and self-promotion, diplomacy and, in the 19th century, in collecting. Often they were used as a currency for their monetary values and the status they could embody. Although they were used for snuff-taking, their practical purpose was often secondary – they were highly valued as art objects in their own right. Gold boxes were a barometer of the taste of the time and exemplify the skills of not only goldsmiths, but also enamellers, lapidaries and miniature painters.
G34|1|1|The Oriental or “Turquerie” (an eighteenth-century term for the fashion of imitating Turkish art and style in western art and design) scenes on this box have been associated with paintings by Carle Van Loo for the decoration of Madame de Pompadour’s Turkish bedroom at her château of Bellevue, although no source has been traced. Surrounding the enamelled scenes are chased borders of shells, foliage and flowers.<br>There have been some alterations to the box; the hinge has either been replaced or restored and the way the enamel sits on the surface suggests that it might have been repainted, perhaps due to damage or perhaps due to a change of tastes. "Turqueries” scenes were also very popular in the early to mid-nineteenth century, so it is possible the enamel might date from this time.<br>Snuffboxes played an important role in fashion and self-promotion, diplomacy and, in the 19th century, in collecting. Often they were used as a currency for their monetary values and the status they could embody. Their practical purpose was often secondary – they were highly valued as art objects in their own right. Gold boxes were a barometer of the taste of the time and exemplify the skills of not only goldsmiths, but also enamellers, lapidaries and miniature painters.
G35|1|1|Formerly thought to be French, both for reasons of style and because of a set of French marks struck in the gold, this box is now considered to be German and probably manufactured in Berlin. Neither the composition of the figures nor the treatment of the scrollwork is typical of Paris work, while it does have similarities to other German boxes, especially those similarly executed in coloured gold. The French marks are now believed to be in imitation of Paris work, no doubt put on the box in an effort to deceive. Moreover, the shape is too elongated for a French box that purports to date from 1761-62, as suggested by these false marks, and the colour of the gold does not seem to be French either.<br>The varicoloured gold hunting scenes and pastoral trophies are set against a striated ground bordered by scrolls, foliage and flowers.
G36|1|1|The box is marked by the nineteenth-century goldsmith Leferre, indicating that at some stage it passed through his workshop which was well known for its production of snuffboxes in the eighteenth-century taste, and many examples of which are to be found in public and private collections. However, it also bears marks indicating it had been made in Paris between 1765-68, and the standard of the gold of the carcass of the box makes it probable that most, if not all, of the cagework dates from the eighteenth century. It is possible that the miniatures were added by Leferre and the lesser quality of these compared with other works by van Blarenberghe have led some specialists to suggest that they are nineteenth-century works.<br>The ten miniatures depict fairground scenes and show the humour and fun of rustic pleasures: the shooting fair, the mountebank who offers medicines and elixirs, games such as nine pins and pelting the goose, decorated windmills, and farm- and stable-yard scenes.<br>Snuffboxes played an important role in fashion and self-promotion, in diplomacy and, in the 19th century, in collecting. Often they were used as a currently for their monetary values and the status they could embody. Their practical purpose was often secondary – they were highly valued as art objects in their own right. Gold boxes were a barometer of the taste of the time and exemplify the skills of not only goldsmiths, but also enamellers, lapidaries and miniature painters.
G37|1|1|An oval varicoloured snuffbox enamelled “en plein” (enamel applied directly on to the snuffbox) with six reserves depicting a mixture of domestic and urban scenes of everyday life taken from engravings after French painters. The cover and base are bordered with ribbon-tied laurels, scrolls and palms in yellow and green gold. The sides are bordered with scrolls and shells and four pilasters hung with swags. The front rim of the lid appears originally to have opened to reveal a secret compartment, now secured shut with lead solder. The interior of the box is gold.<br>While the source for the scene on the lid of the box is still to be identified, the others have been and are as follows: on the base La marchande de marrons (the chestnut seller) and on the front La maman (the mother) both engraved by J.-F. Beauvarlet (1731-1797) after Jean-Baptiste Greuze (1725-1805), on the back Les Jardinières Italiennes au marché (the Italian market gardeners) engraved by J. Ouvrier (1725-1754) after J.-B.-M. Pierre (1713-1789), and those at the ends Le Petit Pasteur and La Petite Fermière (the young farmers) engraved by Claude Duflos (1662-1727) after François Boucher (1703-1770).<br>The absence of a source for the scene on the lid is somewhat frustrating. It depicts the interior of a laundry and is also found on another box now in the Louvre, also by Coiny, and on a box by Adrien-Jean-Maximilien Vachette of 1777-78. This indicates that there was a common print source for all three boxes.<br>As with G38 in the Wallace Collection, the Rococo subjects taken from Boucher and Pierre contrast with the more Neoclassical themes of Greuze. This combination of styles is familiar in furniture, where it is referred to as ‘transitional’, but it is interesting to see paintings similarly juxtaposed when contemporary art critics were often scathing in their judgements.<br>The import and export marks on this box show that this box was exported from France between 1763-1764 and 1774, and that it had returned to Paris between the years 1819 and 1838. It might be assumed that Vachette was responsible for securing the secret compartment, replacing the interior of the lining and perhaps removing a miniature at the same time.<br>Snuffboxes played an important role in fashion and self-promotion, diplomacy and, in the 19th century, in collecting. Often they were used as a currency for their monetary values and the status they could embody. Although they were used for snuff-taking, their practical purpose was often secondary – they were highly valued as art objects in their own right. Gold boxes were a barometer of the taste of the time and exemplify the skills of not only goldsmiths, but also enamellers, lapidaries and miniature painters.
G38|1|1|The enamel decoration of this box is taken from engravings after two celebrated French artists: François Boucher (1703-1770) and Jean-Baptiste Greuze (1725-1805). The fact that works by these two artists are placed side-by-side is an interesting comment on the evolution of taste, and demonstrates the transitional style between Boucher’s Rococo and Greuze’s more moralizing Neoclassicism that superseded it. The style of the gold mounts, however, leaves no doubt as to the preference of this little-known goldsmith, Pierre Cerneau, with its Greek key border and a guilloche divided by paterae, and an outer border of green gold laurel swags tied with white gold ribbon. The four pilasters with scrolling capitals that divide the walls of the box underline the Antique theme of the decoration.<br>The domestic scene on the lid is after "La Trompette" by Greuze and shows a woman feeding her baby in front of a fireplace. The original painting is in the Royal Collection. The engraving of the painting was first advertised in L’avant coureur, a Parisian newspaper, on 5 March 1764, almost exactly the same time as this box was begun. The scene on the front is “La Maman” and that on the back “La marchande de marrons” all after Greuze. The scene on the right hand side is after François Boucher's “La petite fermière” engraved by Duflos.<br>Snuffboxes played an important role in fashion and self-promotion, in diplomacy and, in the 19th century, in collecting. Often they were used as a currently for their monetary values and the status they could embody. Although they were used for snuff-taking, their practical purpose was often secondary – they were highly valued as art objects in their own right. Gold boxes were a barometer of the taste of the time and exemplify the skills of not only goldsmiths, but also enamellers, lapidaries and miniature painters.
G39|1|1|Both scenes of Venus on the lid and base are taken from paintings by François Boucher commissioned by Madame de Pompadour (1721–1764) for herself. On the top is 'L’Amour désarmé' where Cupid implores Venus to return his bow and arrow, and on the bottom the 'Toilette de Vénus' which, appropriately, Madame de Pompadour hung in her bathroom at the château of Bellevue in 1751. The latter painting was not even available in engraved form when this box was made, suggesting that either she, before her death in 1764, or her brother on inheriting the two paintings, commissioned this box from Demay. Both the enamels are the same orientation as the paintings from which they are taken, which suggests that the anonymous enameller had access to the original paintings.<br>The reserves on the walls derive from prints after Boucher; the front and back are taken from 'La Terre' (front) and 'L'air' (back) both engraved by Jean Daullé. On the left is 'La musique' after an engraving by L.-F. de la Rue.<br>Snuffboxes played an important role in fashion and self-promotion, in diplomacy and, in the nineteenth century, in collecting. Often they were used as a currently for their monetary values and the status they could embody. Their practical purpose was often secondary — they were highly valued as art objects in their own right. Gold boxes were a barometer of the taste of the time and exemplify the skills of not only goldsmiths, but also enamellers, lapidaries and miniature painters.
G40|1|1|In eighteenth- and nineteenth-century auction catalogues, the makers of gold snuffboxes were only identified if their names were inscribed on the bezel. This meant that some goldsmiths obtained a certain celebrity, such as Louis Roucel, whose name was found inscribed on several boxes, including this one.<br>Roucel became a royal goldsmith by 1764 and advertised himself as being on the quai de l’Horloge at the sign of the Plump Grape (Gros Raisin).<br>In 1819 the sale of the collection of Queen Charlotte (1744-1818), wife of George III, included several snuffboxes. She was well-known to have been a habitual snuff-taker and this box appears to have been in her collection. It is not known when it came into the Wallace Collection, but it bears a hallmark denoting that it was in Paris between 1819 and 1838 and it may be that it was bought by the 4th Marquess of Hertford in that city.<br>Octagonal with canted corners, this box has been mounted with ten panels of Japanese lacquer. The seemingly black streak on the lacquer cover is actually silver decoration that has oxidized black. The panels depict two deer by a river, a pavilion, and chrysanthemum flowers and other foliage along the walls. The lacquer comprises several types; “hiramaki-e” (gold powder on a flat surface); “takamaki-e” (gold powder on a raised surface) and “kirigane” (gold foil). The cagework is decorated with rouletted lines with a rose at each junction and the cover is bordered by a single strand of rope work. The interior of the box is gold.<br>Snuffboxes played an important role in fashion and self-promotion, in diplomacy and, in the 19th century, in collecting. Often they were used as a currently for their monetary values and the status they could embody. Their practical purpose was often secondary – they were highly valued as art objects in their own right. Gold boxes were a barometer of the taste of the time and exemplify the skills of not only goldsmiths, but also enamellers, lapidaries and miniature painters.
G41|1|1|The piqué panels on this box date from well before it was made, and were probably cut from a larger piece, forming part of a now unidentifiable object such as a casket or a small piece of furniture. They may be French but it is also possible that they have an Italian origin, as Naples was a great centre for this kind of work in the eighteenth century. There is a certain ‘japonaiserie’ style to the panels – they appear to imitate Japanese lacquer - which perhaps suggests a date in the first quarter of the eighteenth century for their manufacture.<br>The box is also mounted with ten panels of gold enamelled in translucent green. The gold cagework supporting these is beautifully decorated with a chased border of acanthus leaves, framed by a continuous border of lambrequins alternating with quatrefoils. In shape and appearance it is testament to the emerging popularity of Neoclassical design in France in the later 1760s.
G42|1|1|This oval gold snuffbox has been mounted with six miniatures painted in gouache on vellum under glass, mounted ‘à cage’ (method of placing plaques into a gold frame to create the box).<br>The miniatures depict domestic scenes but the ultimate source for them has not been identified. They may derive from works by Jean-Baptiste Greuze, or Nicolas-Bernard Lépicié or Noel Hallé, all of whom were interested in painting moral scenes that centred on the domestic world. On the cover of this box, van Blarenberghe has painted a family collecting their infant from a wetnurse. The habit of giving babies to wetnurses to suckle was already drawing criticism when this miniature was painted, but it remained common for many years afterwards.<br>The treatment of the goldsmith’s work is unusual for a box mounted with miniatures by van Blarenberghe, and the areas between the paintings have been filled with scrolling foliage and rosettes of gold. This adds to the richness and lavishness of the box, and makes for an entirely harmonious design.<br>Snuffboxes played an important role in fashion and self-promotion, in diplomacy and, in the 19th century, in collecting. Often they were used as a currently for their monetary values and the status they could embody. Their practical purpose was often secondary – they were highly valued as art objects in their own right. Gold boxes were a barometer of the taste of the time and exemplify the skills of not only goldsmiths, but also enamellers, lapidaries and miniature painters.
G43|1|1|The box is enamelled in basse taille (translucent) enamel and set with two opaque enamel reserves. The main scene on the cover shows a young girl worshipping to Cupid at an altar, while that on the base depicts a girl garlanding a classical herm with flowers. This is taken from an engraving after a painting, L’offrande à Céres (The offering to Ceres) by the fashionable Neoclassical architect, Joseph-Marie Vien, which he had exhibited at the Salon of 1765. The proximity of the exhibition to the date of manufacture of this box shows just how quickly movements in taste affected the decoration of snuffboxes.<br>Underneath the translucent green of the walls are engraved trophies and landscapes.
G44|1|1|The six larger enamelled subjects on this box are all taken from engravings after paintings by Jean-Baptiste Greuze. On the cover is 'L’accordée du Village' after an engraving by J-J. Flipart. The original painting, now in the Louvre, was shown at the Salon of 1761 and was in the collection of the marquis de Marigny, Madame de Pompadour's brother, before being bought at his sale in 1782 by Louis XVI. On the base is 'La trompette' after an engraving by L. Cars. Greuze’s original was exhibited at the Salon of 1759, when it was in the collection of Jean de Julienne, and is now in the Royal Collection. On the front wall is 'La bonne Education' after an engraving by P-C. Ingouf, and on the back is 'La maman' after the engraving by J-F. Beauvarlet. The right hand side shows 'La curieuse' after the engraving by J-F. Beauvarlet, and on the left hand side is 'La belle blanchisseuse', painted in 1761, formerly in the collection of the comtesse de la Ferronaye, and now in the J. Paul Getty Museum, after an engraving by J-C. Danze.<br>The enamels on this box are of the highest quality and it is therefore exceptionally frustrating not to be able to give the artist responsible a name, nor even to hazard a guess at a name.<br>Greuze’s contemporary moral scenes enjoyed an enormous vogue in the 1760s. Unlike earlier rococo boxes where the painted scenes and goldsmith’s work provide a riot of decoration, this box shows the new austerity of Neoclassicism more in keeping with Greuze’s subject matter. Here the enamels fill the flat areas and are simply edged with gold rather like being miniature paintings in their gilded frames.<br>Snuffboxes played an important role in fashion and self-promotion, in diplomacy and, in the nineteenth century, in collecting. Often they were used as a currently for their monetary values and the status they could embody. Their practical purpose was often secondary — they were highly valued as art objects in their own right. Gold boxes were a barometer of the taste of the time and exemplify the skills of not only goldsmiths, but also enamellers, lapidaries and miniature painters.
G45|1|1|The accomplished nature of the enamel plaques and their painterly execution suggest an artist of considerable proficiency. Given the signature ‘J. C.’ in the enamel on the lid, it is tempting to make a tentative attribution to Jean Coteau (c. 1739-after 1812), a miniaturist from Geneva who was working in Paris. A portrait miniature of Gustav III, King of Sweden, in the Wallace Collection (M92) demonstrates a comparable treatment in the use of enamel colours. This painter is not to be confused with Joseph Coteau, a successful enameller who, amongst other activities, worked for the Sèvres porcelain manufactory.<br>The three enamelled scenes are taken from engravings after paintings by François Boucher, including ‘Le goûter de l’automne’ on the cover.<br>The base has been restored, probably in the nineteenth century.
G46|1|1|Stunning in its apparent simplicity, this box incorporates eight panels of lapis lazuli mounted in a cagework of varicoloured gold. The panel on the cover is bordered by rose-cut diamonds in silver settings, that on the base is bordered by stylized chased gold foliage, and the sides are divided by six gold pilasters set with diamonds in silver settings. Green gold swags of laurel hang between the capitals and there are acanthus leaves chased in gold around the base.<br>Eighteenth-century French boxes set with diamonds in the Neoclassical style are comparatively rare, and where they do appear the diamonds are normally restricted to forming thumbpieces or the frames to miniatures. Diamonds decorating the sides of boxes are rarer still. There is evidence that the diamonds, at least on the cover, may have been added some time between 1819 and 1838.
G47|1|1|Although originally made between 1762 and 1768, it would appear that the box was returned to its maker, P-F Drais, or another equally competent workshop, in 1769-79 when the panels of translucent blue enamel, with oval medallions, replaced some earlier form of decoration. If it were not for the hallmarks in the cover and the base, which confirm the date of this alteration, it would not have been unreasonable to assume that the added plaques were put in later, perhaps in the early nineteenth century.<br>The putti that decorate the pink plaques have been inspired by engravings after Boucher. The putto on the base is from an engraving by E. Fessard of “L'Amour vendangeur”. Those on the left and front are both from engravings by P. Aveline after Boucher; that on the left from “Trois amours à coté d'un cartouche” and that on the front is from “Deux enfants dormant avec des moutons”.<br>This varicoloured gold snuffbox has been enamelled with translucent blue enamel. Each side has been set with a plaque painted in pink (Camaïeu rose) depicting putti, framed in gold decorated with chased acanthus leaves. All are mounted in a cagework of gold, chased with ivy leaves and alternating husks and flutes in yellow gold. The walls are divided by four pilasters at the corners, hung with swags, with a guilloche border around the rim of the base. The interior of the box is gold.<br>Snuffboxes played an important role in fashion and self-promotion, in diplomacy and, in the 19th century, in collecting. Often they were used as a currently for their monetary values and the status they could embody. Their practical purpose was often secondary – they were highly valued as art objects in their own right. Gold boxes were a barometer of the taste of the time and exemplify the skills of not only goldsmiths, but also enamellers, lapidaries and miniature painters.
G49|1|1|The combination of grisaille scenes, green enamel in imitation of hardstone, and the restrained decoration of the gold all show this box as a fine example of early Neoclassical gold-box design. The decoration may be an early example of gold enamelled to simulate malachite, although other examples do not appear to date from before 1780. The goldsmith, Barrière, is also known to have imitated pink marble.<br>The cherubs representing Painting on the lid and Sculpture on the base are after François Boucher (1703-1770).
G50|1|1|An oval varicoloured gold snuffbox mounted with six panels of gold engine turned with undulating lines and ‘pellets’. The cover and base are set with oval enamelled plaques painted in opaque colours with fêtes galantes scenes similar to those in paintings by Lancret or Pater. The top and bottom are bordered by gold chased with a continuous band of stylized flowers and the sides divided by four fluted pilasters. The interior of the box is god.<br>A specific design source for the enamel plaques has not been found.
G51|1|1|The miniature of Ninon de Lenclos (1620-1705), a French author and courtesan, is signed and dated by Bone. In the early nineteenth century, portraits in the manner of Petitot were highly desirable and a painting by Bone in this style would have been considered an enhancement to a box in preference to the anonymous eighteenth-century miniature with which it would originally have been decorated.<br>The box is in the neo-classical style that was becoming fashionable in France at the date it was made, and the associated love for hardstones is reflected in the decoration. The gold has been enamelled with ten oval reserves imitating granite, with two circular roundels enamelled in imitation of lapis lazuli on the cover. The base is similarly enamelled but with a central medallion chased with three amorini making music. The walls of the box are decorated with four pilasters chased with putti, and four busts of Roman emperors.
G52|1|1|This circular rock crystal box has been mounted in a gold framework which has been pierced and chased with scrolling foliage and, since there is no gold lining, the clear crystal sparkles through the gold. The lid is set with a circular plaque which has a sunburst decoration enamelled in translucent blue and a diamond trophy showing emblems of Love and Music, all in settings of silver. The fixing of the plaque shows evidence of it having been a later addition and marks show the box was on the Paris market twice, between 1780-89. It is likely that the plaque and the diamonds were added at one of these times. If this is so, it is possible that this stunning and highly refined box was once in the possession of a great Parisian collector, the duc d’Aumont, whose sale catalogue contained two boxes the description of which closely fits this box.<br>Underneath the cover is a blue silk lining.
G54|1|1|An octagonal snuff box in old and blue enamel on an engine-turned ground. Decorated with bands of gold with festoons and foliage in different coloured enamels. The lid is set with diamonds and with a three-quarter portrait miniature which is not contemporary with the box but earlier, and dates from the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century. It shows Marie-Adélaide, Duchesse de Bourgogne (1685-1712), who in 1696 married Louis XIV’s grandson and was the mother of Louis XV. It is possible that the box always had a miniature in the lid, but not this one: the replacement of miniatures was not uncommon during the first half of the nineteenth century when the portrait of a great lady of the seventeenth or early eighteenth century was considered much more desirable than that of a lesser known subject. The box has all the characteristics of having been re-enamelled and this redecoration was probably undertaken at the same time that the miniature was associated with the box. Prince Anatole Demidoff (1813-1870), for example, who owned this box before the Marquess of Hertford, is known to have appreciated ‘antique boxes’ as vehicles for his miniatures.
G55|1|1|The decorative panels of this box have been made from European lacquer that has been applied to mother-of-pearl, in imitation of Asian lacquer. It may be that they are rare examples of 'vernis Martin', a European lacquer produced by the Martin brothers in Paris under a royal warrant from 1744. The brothers are known to have made snuffboxes, and a contemporary source stated that the Martin lacquer was encrusted with mother-of-pearl. The scenes in the 'chinoiserie' style are created from a mixture of resins, varnish and gold powder and show, on the lid, a man sitting under a tree with his broomstick and a gaggle of geese and, around the walls, flowers and foliage.<br>However, the very low gold standard for this box (19.5 carat instead of the standard 20.25 carat) and the large number of base metal pins securing it, suggest the box has been the subject of some alteration or repair. It is probable that the box was actually reconstructed in the nineteenth century, using some or all of the eighteenth-century gold work and adding the shell and lacquer panels.<br>Snuffboxes played an important role in fashion and self-promotion, in diplomacy and, in the nineteenth century, in collecting. Often they were used as a currently for their monetary values and the status they could embody. Their practical purpose was often secondary — they were highly valued as art objects in their own right. Gold boxes were a barometer of the taste of the time and exemplify the skills of not only goldsmiths, but also enamellers, lapidaries and miniature painters.
G56|1|1|The six scenes of cherubs in the manner of François Boucher (1703-1770) are set within gold frames bordered with a contrasting engine-turned gold ground covered in green basse taille (translucent) enamel. It is highly likely that the panels are later additions to the box, but it is not possible to determine their precise origin.<br>The octagonal plaque on the cover is painted after B. Lepicié’s engraving of 1742 after Boucher’s ‘L’amour oiseleur’ and that on the base derives from ‘L’amour moissonneur’ from the same series. The panel on the front is after Pierre Aveline’s engraving after Boucher’s ‘Le retour de chasse’ from the series ‘Jeux d’Enfants’, which was advertised in the Mercure de France in April 1738. The figures on the left- and right-hand sides of the box may be taken from the same engraving.<br>Snuffboxes played an important role in fashion and self-promotion, diplomacy and, in the 19th century, in collecting. Often they were used as a currency for their monetary values and the status they could embody. Although they were used for snuff-taking, their practical purpose was often secondary – they were highly valued as art objects in their own right. Gold boxes were a barometer of the taste of the time and exemplify the skills of not only goldsmiths, but also enamellers, lapidaries and miniature painters.
G58|1|1|By the date this box was made, borders with opaque and translucent enamelled fruit and flowers had become something of a convention in Paris and were it not for the mark of the goldsmith, George-Antoine Croze, the box could have been made by almost any other Parisian goldsmith of the period. Unusual, however, are the six oval chalcedony cameo plaques which decorate the box, signed and dated (1776 (lid), 1778 and 1779 (base and sides)) by the gem-engraver, Jean-Baptiste-Nicolas Glachant. This would appear to be a unique use of his cameos being used to decorate a gold snuffbox.<br>The form and the decoration of the box may have been dictated by the marchand mercier, C. R. Granchez, who sold it in his shop, Le Petit Dunkerque. The shop name is engraved on the bezel of the box. This was one of the most famous and fashionable shops in Paris. Granchez had originally opened a shop, ‘un grand magasin Anglais’ in Dunkirk at the sign of the Perle d’Orient, but he opened another in Paris in 1767, where he advertised ‘bijouterie et quincaillerie anglaise’. His shop sign, depicting the port of Dunkirk, was painted by Joseph Vernet.
G59|1|1|According to Diderot’s Encyclopédie, boxes made solely of gold were referred to by the goldsmiths as ‘tabatières plaines’ (plain snuffboxes). The small size of this box suggests that it was intended to hold just sufficient snuff for a day, or half a day (known as a ‘journée’, or a ‘demi-journée’), or that it was intended for a lady.<br>The cover and base of the box have been engine turned with concentric circles and are bordered by a band of green gold foliage interspersed with red gold quatrefoils on a matted ground. The rim is bordered by green gold foliage and berries tied with ribbons.
G60|1|1|In the eighteenth century, screens of seventeenth-century Japanese lacquer were often cut up and mounted on furniture such as secretaires, cabinets and chests-of-drawers. The small remaining off-cuts were considered precious enough to be sold for setting in goldsmiths’ work. This box is unusually engraved with the goldsmith’s signature and a date; Vachette only became a master goldsmith in 1779, so this is one of his earliest works. He went on to become a specialist in mounting valuable objects such as lacquer, turtleshell, micro-mosaics, miniatures and hard stones in gold snuff boxes and the unusual and inventive form of this box, perfectly complementing the fan shape of the lacquer decoration, is typical of his work.<br>Vachette’s career spanned both the last decades of Louis XVI’s rule and the years after the French Revolution. He was associated with jewellers who supplied Napoleon I, Louis XVIII and Charles X.
G61|1|1|Boxes of this elongated form are generally considered to have been intended to hold tooth picks. They are frequently referred to as patch boxes, and both sometimes had mirrors on the inside of the lid. However, boxes like this one which do not include a mirror were almost certainly intended for tooth picks and it must be assumed that the highly polished gold inside the lid provided sufficient reflection to enable the user to see what he, or she, were doing.<br>The decoration includes a border of yellow gold ‘pearls’ with red gold flowers and scrolling foliage. The walls are divided by four musical trophies in red and yellow gold.
G62|1|1|This gold box contains six miniatures painted by Henri-Joseph van Blarenberghe, depicting the Château de Romainville and its gardens. The box and its miniatures were commissioned by the château’s owner, the marquis de Ségur, who became Minister of War to Louis XVI in 1780. Romainville’s gardens were redesigned in 1780 in the latest fashion. The ‘Anglo-Chinese’ type of landscaped garden became especially popular in France in the 1770s and 1780s. It was a studied imitation of nature in an English style, with carefully placed Roman temples, artificial lakes, Chinese pagodas and rolling hills. Indeed, it was through the depiction of the gardens that the château on the box could be identified in 1950, from Georges-Luis Le Rouge’s 'Les Jardins Anglo-Chinois' (Paris 1774–89), a compendium of gardens in this new style with illustrations and plans drawn by Le Rouge.<br>The marquis de Ségur himself appears on the lid, where we see the château behind a village festival known as the Rosière. This ceremony, during which a village girl, her virtue determined by the village priest and the seigneur, would be crowned with a wreath of roses and presented with her dowry, came to epitomize certain eighteenth-century ideas of natural virtue and pastoral idylls.<br>This box is the only box in the Wallace Collection whose original patron is personally identified. In a social setting the box would have been viewed by all who wished to partake in snuff and was a perfect way for the marquis to be seen by his peers.<br>Snuffboxes played an important role in fashion and self-promotion, in diplomacy and, in the nineteenth century, in collecting. Often they were used as a currently for their monetary values and the status they could embody. Their practical purpose was often secondary — they were highly valued as art objects in their own right. Gold boxes were a barometer of the taste of the time and exemplify the skills of not only goldsmiths, but also enamellers, lapidaries and miniature painters.
G63|1|1|Boxes without hinges are today frequently referred to as bonbonnières, normally circular boxes used to contain sweetmeats to freshen the breath. However, the term does not appear to have been used before about 1770 and before that the term ‘boïte à bonbons’ (sweet box) seems to have been used.<br>The enamel decoration of this box has been used ingeniously. The blue and green translucent enamels create a stunning scale pattern, while around the rim enamels have been applied to give a ‘jewelled’ effect. The same technique was used at the Sèvres porcelain manufactory, where it was developed by Philippe Parpette and Joseph Coteau in the 1770s. The goldsmith who marked this box, Joseph-Etienne Blerzy, seems to have been at the forefront of taste in using this style of decoration on gold boxes.
G64|1|1|This box is mounted with an assemblage of gouache fragments by two different hands. Those on the top and bottom and in the centre of the long sides are attributed to the van Blarenberghes and show characters from the Italian Commedia dell' Arte, or various figural scenes. They do not make a homogeneous group, however, and the miniatures of ruins or landscapes which flank the van Blarenberghe miniatures further confuse the arrangement. These are paintings ‘fixés sous verre’, a technique which involves painting in watercolour mixed with an adhesive such as gum or oil, painted onto the vellum before the paint is dry, thus applying the paint directly to the glass surface.<br>The box is signed ‘Vachette à Paris’. Adrien-Jean-Maximilien Vachette was the pupil of another great gold box maker, Pierre-François Drais (the Wallace Collection has three boxes by Drais, G47, G53 and G62) and although his early work resembles that of his master, he later used an inventive array of materials to decorate his boxes, including hardstones, Oriental and European lacquer, micro-mosaics and Roman glass, as well as miniatures as on this box.
G65|1|1|A square snuff box composed of Sèvres porcelain, showing groups of amorini, very delicately painted on a white ground. These are set in gold mounts. The lid shows three nude children playing among trees and plants.<br>The style of painting of the porcelain panels which decorate this box is similar to that of the Sèvres painter André-Vincent Vielliard (1717-1790) in the 1750s but the combination of cherubs and children in a set of plaques is unusual and the painting is ‘flimsy’ for Sèvres. The matt glaze may indicate refiring or the removal of the original decoration with acid, suggesting that the eighteenth-century soft-paste porcelain has been redecorated in the nineteenth century when the fashion for Sèvres decorated in this manner was at its height. The eighteenth-century records for the Sèvres manufactory show that undecorated snuff boxes were sold on occasion.<br>The scene on the cover may be derived from L’eau and Le feu, two engravings from a suite by L-F. de la Rue after drawings by François Boucher.
G67|1|1|The miniatures on the cover and base of this box are attributed to Jean Petitot, a Geneva-born artist who worked in England for Charles I until the Civil War and subsequently for Louis XIV, before returning to his native Geneva following the expulsion of the Huguenots from France by the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. The use of these images to decorate a gold box is characteristic of the revived interest in the Bourbon monarchy following the return of Louis XVIII to the French throne in 1815 after the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo. The elaborate engraved ground showing the fleurs-de-lys of France through lime-green translucent enamel reinforces the dating of this box to after the Restoration of the monarchy. The box was originally owned by George IV, who reputedly considered it to be the finest in his collection. Later it was acquired by the 3rd Marquess of Hertford who gave it to his son, the 4th Marquess, in 1834.
G68|1|1|As with another box in the Wallace Collection (G69), this box is signed by the enameller, P-E. Schindler, and is also decorated with scenes after David Teniers the Younger combined with figures from scenes after Boucher. The scene on the front is taken from the Tardieu engraving of ‘Le desjeuner flamand’ by Teniers, but the addition of the child and the interior, which are not depicted in the engraving, is probably Schindler’s own invention.<br>Schindler was the son of a Meissen porcelain painter and worked as a painter himself at the Meissen manufactory from about 1740 until 1750. At that time he left for Vienna, where in 1770 he became the director of painting at the Kaiserliche Porzellanmanufaktur (the Imperial Porcelain Factory). He seems to have enamelled boxes from as early as 1758, not just in Vienna but also in other centres including possibly Paris. Later in his career he developed a Neoclassical style ‘ en grisaille’, or in pink or blue camaïeu, probably during the 1770s
G69|1|1|Other significant centres of gold box production in the eighteenth century apart from Paris and Hanau included Vienna, and this box is an example of the high quality goldsmiths’ work achieved in that city. Similar to Parisian boxes of the same period, for example that by Jean-Charles-Simphorien Dubos in the Wallace Collection (G23), the enamel decoration incorporates scenes after David Teniers the Younger. Here the enameller has signed the enamel on the cover, ‘Schindler Wienn’, identifying him as Philip-Ernst Schindler. Schindler enamelled boxes by several Viennese goldsmiths and perhaps worked for goldsmiths in Paris too. From Saxony originally, in his earlier years in Vienna he seems to have principally copied the work of David Teniers the Younger, here derived from engravings by Jacques Tardieu (‘Le desjeuner flamand’, on the lid) and Jacques-Philippe Le Bas (‘La femme jalouse’ on the base). This latter enamel is testament to Schindler’s creativity; rather than copying Le Bas’ engraving, he has combined two figures from it with the more charming elements of an engraving by John Ingram after François Boucher (‘L’école domestique’). The scenes around the walls of the box maybe of Schindler’s own invention or they may be taken from details of other prints in his possession.
G70|1|1|This pear-shaped flask, or snuff bottle, is covered in black shagreen (skin from a shark’s belly). The crowned monograms CR and the Oder of the Garter on the flask suggest that it once belonged to King Charles II (reigned 1660-85). At one time it was thought to have been a miniature powder flask, or primer, perhaps for the young Prince Charles, but it lacks any sort of spout that would have been necessary to prime a gun, and the initials clearly include the letter R for Rex. It is known that in England in the seventeenth century shagreen containers, in the shape of bottles and decorated with gold studs, perhaps like this one, were intended to take snuff and not only Charles II but also his close intimates such as the Duke of Lauderdale enjoyed snuff-taking.
G71|1|1|The decoration on this box evokes water and the sea: perhaps appropriately enough, its shape was sometimes referred to as ‘bath-shaped’. The lid is chased with a depiction of Neptune commanding the winds and the waves, while the base is chased with a trophy emblematic of water. Around the sides are shells and volute decoration with several putti: two swimming, one holding a trident and one a rudder, and one playing with a dolphin.<br>Although believed to be English, the design source for the cover decoration may be an illustration to Mme Dacier’s 1710 translation of Homer’s ‘Iliad’, depicting Neptune approaching the Trojan shores in order to help the Greeks. Other ornamental motifs recall the work of the French designer and silversmith, Juste-Aurèle Meissonnier.
G72|1|1|The box comprises six panels of bloodstone mounted in gold and engraved and gilded with interlaced circles. The thumbpiece for opening the box has been set with a bouquet of diamonds. The interior of the box is bloodstone.<br>The design of the mounts, chased with undulating waves, is more commonly found in Germany than elsewhere in the eighteenth century, but the proportions of the box and style of decoration, especially the thumbpiece, suggest a date in the early years of the nineteenth century. There is no maker’s mark to help identify its place of manufacture, but its possible provenance in the collection of Prince Anatole Demidoff, a noted Russian collector, may provide a clue.
G73|1|1|Boxes containing mirrors are frequently referred to as patch boxes but the elongated shape of this box indicates that it was intended to contain toothpicks. A mirror would be equally useful when picking one’s teeth as it would be in the application of patches.<br>The use of ivory, with its simulated plaited decoration, is especially appropriate for a tooth-pick case, and it probably contained ivory sticks for use as toothpicks. The base is a plain sheet of ivory attached to the metal carcass by a gold mount.<br>The low standard of the gold used in the decoration (approximately 15 carat) is more typical of pieces made after 1854 when such a standard became permissible in Britain; however, stylistically the piece is more likely to be of an earlier date.
G75|1|1|Boxes decorated with enamels of French dignitaries of the Ancien Régime were popular in England following the defeat of Napoleon at the battle of Waterloo.<br>The three portrait miniatures in enamel on the lid depict on the right Louis XIV by Henri Toutin, c. 1667-8, in the centre his mistress, the duchesse Louise de la Vallière (1644-1710), after Jean Petitot (1607-91), probably French 19th century, and on the left Cardinal de Bouillon by a 17th-century follower of Petitot.<br>Whilst the elongated rectangular shape of this box might suggest that it was intended for toothpicks, its form was probably dictated by the necessity of incorporating all three miniatures. By the time the box was made, the habit of taking snuff was in decline.
G76|1|1|Frederick the Great of Prussia was a great lover of gold boxes and amassed an extraordinary personal collection but he was not the only patron of beautiful snuffboxes in Berlin and the city was an important centre for goldsmiths’ work, supplying the thriving nobility and wealthy bourgeoisie. The delicious chased work of this box – in yellow, green and white gold – on the reserves depicts pastoral landscapes with shepherds, sheep and dogs, framed by scrolls of ornament set with lapis lazuli panels. The background to the reserves is ivory, although originally this was stained green as can be seen from the bottom of the box. When the box was exhibited in 1872 at the Bethnal Green Museum in London the body of the box was described as being of ‘jade’, so it is clear that it would then have been much greener. The bleached colour today of the sides and lid must be the result of a hundred years of it being on display, before it was moved to the more light-protected cabinet where it is on view today.
G77|1|1|Set with diamonds and painted with enamel mythological scenes after François Boucher (1703-1770), this is one of the most important German boxes in the Wallace Collection. Signed in enamel on the lid is the name “Kruger P”, for J-G-G.Krüger, an enameller born in London who moved to Berlin in 1753 via Paris. Whilst in Berlin he produced at least 40 designs for snuffboxes, including some of the jewel-encrusted boxes so favoured by his patron, Frederick the Great (1712-1786). He appears to have spent a decade back in Paris from the early 1770s before ending his days in Berlin. This box appears to be the only surviving autographed enamel by Krüger.<br>Krüger has taken engravings after Boucher as his source for the enamel decoration; for example, the cover is from ‘The Rape of Europa’ by Claude Duflos, published in 1752. It is significant that all the source engravings were published in Paris before Krüger first left for Berlin, and whilst all of them could have been available to him in Germany he could well have taken them with him.
G78|1|1|The helmeted head carved on the lid of this rock crystal box bears a resemblance to a medal portrait of Catherine the Great by Johann Georg Waechter, but it is more likely to be a depiction of Bellona (or Minerva), the goddess of war, on whom the celebrated Catherine medal was based. Stylistically the box displays none of the characteristics that would be expected of a box made in the early 1760s when the medal of Catherine was struck.<br>The carving of the box is a triumph of Baroque ornament and this conservative style, and the almost spherical form, suggests a date of manufacture around the second quarter of the eighteenth century. The high quality of the cutting points to a centre where there was a well-developed tradition of stone, especially rock crystal, cutting, most probably Dresden. It is very probable that the box was sold at one of the fairs in Frankfurt or Leipzig where many such luxury goods were traded, rather than in the city of its manufacture.
G79|1|1|The decoration of this box is similar to some of those commissioned by Frederick the Great of Prussia between 1742 and 1775. The shape, however, is not typical of the eighteenth century and the style of the gold mounts suggests a date of manufacture during the first half of the nineteenth century, probably between the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 and 1850.<br>The Prussian practice of using glass in place of hardstones for some of the more spectacular ‘stones’ is well known, but here carved hardstone flowers and a butterfly are set on a bloodstone background, mounted in varicoloured gold and chased with stylized flowers, drapery and rams’ heads in red, yellow and white gold. The slightly bombé sides and the base of this box are carved from a single bloodstone. The interior of the box is stone.<br>When it was acquired by Sir Richard Wallace from the Empress Eugénie it was thought to be 'Italian work', but presumably this is because almost all work in coloured hardstones (apart from that of Johann Christian Neuber of Dresden) was considered to be Florentine at that date.
G80|1|1|Johann Christian Neuber is one of the most celebrated goldsmiths of eighteenth-century Dresden, noted particularly for his work with hardstones. Here the oval box comprises plaques of carnelian, set within a delicate gold trellis incorporating bands of chased scrolls, guilloche and paterae. The carnelian panel on the lid is carved in relief with a depiction of Leda and the Swan, probably by another anonymous Dresden lapidary. Traditionally boxes by Neuber are considered more geometric and rigid in their style, but this one has a marvellous fluidity to the gold work and a pleasing harmony between the hardstone and the gold web in which it sits.<br>A secret slide inside can be revealed by pressing on a lower panel, and frames two miniatures, mounted back to back with portraits of Voltaire (1694–1778) and Madame du Châtelet (1706–1749). Both were among the outstanding intellectuals of their time in Paris, Voltaire a famous author and playwright, Châtelet a renowned mathematician and translator of scientific texts. They had a celebrated affair between 1733 and Châtelet’s death in 1749.<br>However, the miniatures, which were noted in a sale catalogue of 1863, were not originally mounted in the box. They both date from after its manufacture and may replace those of an earlier couple or another type of insert, since the slide was most likely made at the same time as the box. Certain boxes are known containing similar slides which contain booklets describing the stones used in their manufacture, and this may also be a possibility for this box.<br>An old attribution of the miniature of Voltaire to Drouais goes back to the 1865 sale catalogue and has been interpreted as a reference to Hubert Drouais (1699–1767). Current opinion is that the portrait is a combination of a lost drawing, known from an engraving, by Joseph-Etienne Liotard of 1734 of Voltaire as a young man and a portrait by Jean Huber of him as an older man. Regarding the portrait of Madame du Châtelet, this is ultimately derived from a painting by Marianne Loir of the late 1740s, but taken from an engraving by Pierre-Gabriel Langlois of 1786.<br>The low standard of gold used in the box (approximately 14 percent.) may be because the gold cagework needed to be strengthened by the inclusion of a large amount of copper, but it is more likely that Neuber required a redder gold to be more compatible with the colour of the carnelian. It appears that there was no system for assaying gold in Dresden at this period.<br>Snuffboxes played an important role in fashion and self-promotion, in diplomacy and, in the nineteenth century, in collecting. Often they were used as a currently for their monetary values and the status they could embody. Their practical purpose was often secondary — they were highly valued as art objects in their own right. Gold boxes were a barometer of the taste of the time and exemplify the skills of not only goldsmiths, but also enamellers, lapidaries and miniature painters.
G81|1|1|This magnificent and very showy box depicts scenes from the late sixteenth-century poem ‘Gerusalemme Liberata’ by Torquato Tasso, which tells a romanticised version of the First Crusade in which the great Christian knight, Rinaldo is seduced by the witch Armida. In eighteenth-century France the poem experienced a revival in popularity and formed the basis for several successful operas; various scenes were also painted and engraved. The enamels here may be taken from paintings by Charles-Antoine Coypel (1694-1752), and from engravings by François Joullain after Coypel and Nicolas Château after Louis de Silvestre (1675-1760). The opera ‘L’Armide’ by Carl Heinrich Graun was first performed in Berlin in 1751, which may have been the source of inspiration for this snuffbox. Certainly the idea of a proscenium arch behind which each scene is represented suggests a theatrical source.<br>The enamelling has been attributed to Isaak Jacob Clauce, the son of a goldsmith from Metz who trained in Augsburg before moving to Meissen and then Berlin. He appears to have brought prints with him to Berlin from France. The prolific use of diamonds underlines the Berlin provenance of the box.
G82|1|1|Boxes without hinges are today frequently referred to as bonbonnières, normally circular boxes used to contain sweetmeats to freshen the breath. However, the term does not appear to have been used before about 1770 and before that the term ‘boïte à bonbons’ (sweet box) seems to have been used.<br>The enamel decoration on the cover of this bonbonnière is reminiscent of some kind of botanical specimen, or of the style of gilding used at the Sèvres porcelain manufactory known as ‘vermiculé’ (literally ‘worm tunnels’). The enamels round the borders include an opalescent white in imitation of pearls and translucent green leaves, on a matted gold ground.<br>The linings of the cover and base have Viennese marks, indicating they are nineteenth-century replacements.
G83|1|1|The château depicted on the cover of the box is the former royal medieval castle on the banks of the Loire, the Château d’Amboise. When the miniature was painted, the château was in the possession of the duc de Choiseul, whose own chateau at Chanteloup was only a short distance away; but there is no reason to suggest that Choiseul ever owned this box. It is more likely to have been commissioned by a German in Hanau, who may have acquired the miniature in France perhaps following a visit to the picturesque town of Amboise, or the miniature may have been exported to Hanau and thought to be suitable decoration for a box.<br>Knowledge about the work of this company of goldsmiths in Hanau, Les Frères Toussaint, is a relatively recent discovery. A large and productive workshop, they were part of a thriving centre of gold box production in Hanau in the second half of the eighteenth century, where imitation French marks were used, presumably to pass the boxes off as French and to add a fashionable and desirable allure.
G84|1|1|This oval snuff box bears the remains of the mark for the Hanau goldsmiths, Les Frères Toussaint (active 1762-c.1814). The brothers Charles and Pierre moved to Hanau from Berlin in 1752 and were renowned as suppliers of gold boxes. From 1773 they subcontracted the engine turning of the boxes to Etienne Flamant, formerly working in Geneva, and undertook to provide him with 160 boxes a year. This clearly reveals a large and productive workshop.<br>As with other boxes from Hanau, the marks reveal a clear knowledge of Parisian marks, which were imitated in the German city.<br>The subject of the enamel on the lid is taken from a painting by Jean-Baptiste Greuze (1725-1805), ‘The Village Wedding’, which was shown at the Paris Salon of 1761. The painting was in the possession of the marquis de Marigny when it was engraved by Jean-Jacques Flipart in March 1770 and published by Greuze. The painting remained with Marigny until his posthumous sale in 1782, when it was bought by Louis XV. The subject would have been particularly popular in Protestant Hanau since the image represents the registration of a civil marriage contract before a notary, rather than a religious marriage before a priest.
G85|1|1|The maker’s mark, M&P beneath a crown, presumably combines the initials of the goldsmiths responsible for making this box, which has traditionally been ascribed to Geneva. However, more recently this mark and other similar ones (found on the boxes displayed on this shelf) have been identified as being marks of goldsmiths in Hanau, a German city where the majority of goldsmiths were of French Huguenot origin. These goldsmiths used marks roughly imitating those of Parisian goldsmiths and used unofficial standard marks to heighten the illusion. The great number of boxes that survive with marks of this type suggests a fairly large-scale production by a number of workshops working in one city.<br>On this box the rather confused ornament and naïve enamel paintings further suggest a centre of production which was aware of Parisian taste but was unable to match that city’s skill in either design or goldsmiths’ work.
G86|1|1|The enamelled scenes on the top and bottom are taken from engravings by Louis Desplaces of Charles Parrocel’s ‘The Lion Hunt’ and ‘The Tiger Hunt’. The paintings were hung, with other hunting scenes, by Louis XV in the Petite Galerie at Versailles and the prints after them were advertised in the Mercure de France in July 1731.<br>The other scenes remain unidentified: on the front two riders rest their horses, while on the back two ladies and a gentleman with a servant are out hawking; horses appear on the other two panels, reinforcing the hunting theme.<br>The thumbpiece is formed as a ribbon tied into a bow set with diamonds in silver settings. The box was once owned by the Empress Eugénie of France who brought it and at least five other boxes (six are now in the Wallace Collection) to England when she fled into exile in 1870.
G87|1|1|The scene on the lid depicts The Rape of Europa, where Jupiter takes the form of a Bull. It is taken from Claude Duflos le Jeune’s engraving of ‘L’Enlèvement d’Europe’ (1752) after the painting by François Boucher (1703-70). On the front is another scene taken from an engraving after Boucher, which demonstrates the way in which these prints circulated throughout Europe and were adapted into different forms of decorative art. This one depicts a scene from the countryside around Charenton, engraved in 1747, and it is possible that the other enamels are also adapted from similar views of the area surrounding Beauvais which were painted by Boucher, who was associated with the tapestry works in the town.<br>The Greek key pattern around the sides illustrates the Hanau goldsmiths’ familiarity with Parisian fashions but is more of an interpretation than the architecturally correct form found in French decorative art.
G88|1|1|Although this box has been described in the past as having been made in Geneva, ‘for the Turkish court’, or France, or Switzerland, it has recently been discovered that the signature on the front panel of the box, ‘Krafft pinx’, is that of Ignatius Peter Krafft, an enameller who worked in Hanau from 1779 until his departure to Vienna in 1799. It is extremely rare to find enamels on gold boxes signed by the artist.<br>The monochrome rose-coloured enamels encircle a polychrome port scene in the centre of the lid. Five more monochrome panels in the same ‘rose-camaïeu’ depict various landscape and marine views, all framed in gold enamelled with berries and leaves in translucent red, green and opaque turquoise.
G89|1|1|Hanau was a major centre of jewellery and gold box production, especially in the second half of the 18th century. Many of the goldsmiths were of French Huguenot origin who had been encouraged to settle there by the local ruler and they established a society of ‘bijoutiers’ (jewellers) and a drawing school. They also struck marks which were in imitation of the Paris décharge marks, which were intended to deceive and to fool buyers into thinking that the objects were made in Paris, the centre of fashionable luxury goods production.<br>The standard of gold of the body of this box is very low at 13 carat, lower even than the lid. This is an illustration of the variance that was found in the quality of Hanau boxes, where the goldsmith rather than a guild was responsible for the standard of gold and there were no formal assay checks.<br>The presence of the Bourbon French flag on the decoration of the base of the box suggests that the box may have been intended for export to France, and perhaps was included to strengthen the idea that this was a French-made box.
L3|1|1|This portrait in watercolour was painted when the future Sir Richard Wallace was eight yeards old. It shows him after he had been brought to Paris by his mother, Mrs Agnes Jackson, and left by her with his father, the 4th Marquess of Hertford, and the 4th Marquess's mother, the 3rd Marchioness of Hertford. In fact, at this time he was still Richard Jackson - it was not unitl 1842 that, for unknown reasons, he would change his surname to Wallace (his mother's maiden name), and it was not until nearly fifty years later, in 1871, that he would be knighted by Queen Victoria for his philanthropic activities.<br><br>The portrait was presumably commissioned by either the boy's father or his grandmother, the 3rd Marchioness, to whom he would be particularly close. The portrait was not part of Lady Wallace's bequest to the nation in 1897, but was bequeathed to the Victoria and Albert Museum by Mr. H. E. Backer in 1943.<br><br>Candide Blaize was an established painter of portrait miniatures who exhibited at the Paris Salon from 1822 to 1846. Among his other sitters were the duc d'Orleans and the writer George Sand. From 1832, six years after thisportrait was painted, he lived in Paris at no. 1 rue Taitbout. This was the residence of Marchioness, her son Lord Henry Seymour (half-brother of the 4th Marquess) and the young Richard Jackson/Wallace. Blaize committed suicide there in 1849, while the 3rd Marchioness and her family were in Boulogne.
M3|1|1|Arlaud spent most of his career in Geneva but was in London 1792-1802. The documentary records are unclear, but he may have shown more than forty minitures at the Royal Academy's exhibitions between 1782 and 1800, and then a further work in 1825. This miniature was probably painted in London. It shows a lady wearing a white muslin dress of a kind to be seen in many portraits of women from the 1790s by artists such as Romney, Hoppner and Opie. She has also wrapped a white muslin scarf round her head, perhaps in imitation of some Revolutionary French styles which had crossed the Channel by this time.
M4|1|1|Aubry painted many members of Napoleon's large family, including the Emperor himself. Formally catalogued as a portrait of Pauline Bonaparte, Napoleon's second sister, this is actually a portrait of her younger sister, as is clear from comparison with other images. It also derives from a portrait of Caroline by Isabey in the Louvre, Paris (RF30753). Caroline is shown wearing a superb blue velvet dress with a court collar called a 'chérusque'. Her magnificent jewels comprise a tiara of diamonds radiating upwards from a large turquoise in the centre, with further turquoises set among diamond scrolls; earrings of turqoises and diamonds; and a necklace of alternate small and larger oval clusters of turquoises within diamond borders.
M5|1|1|The pose recalls that in Prud'hon's portrait of Josephine in the Wallace Collection (P315). Josephine is shown wearing with her dress a court collar called a 'chérusque', as she did at her coronation with Napoleon. This was inspired by the 'style troubadour' of painting, of which she was probably the most significant patron.
M7|1|1|The members of Napoleon's large family were also the subject of many portraits. Jérôme Bonaparte was Napoleon's younger brother.
M8|1|1|The demand for portraits of Napoleon was so great that it could only be satisfied by many artists painting them. This miniature by Augustin is characteristic of a type established by Jean-Baptiste Isabey, Napoleon's principal portrait painter in miniature, that was also produced in large numbers by other artists. Here the head has been painted with considerable skill, but the shapeless body (which may be the work of a pupil) has been rendered in a perfunctory manner. Napoleon is shown wearing the uniform of the Chasseurs à cheval. A lock of hair, presumably believed to be Napoleon's own, is set into the back of the miniature.
M9|1|1|The demand for portraits of Napoleon was so great that it could only be satisfied by many artists painting them. This miniature by Augustin is characteristic of a type established by Jean-Baptiste Isabey, Napoleon's principal portrait painter in miniature, that was also produced in large numbers by other artists. Here the head has been painted with some skill, but the shapeless body (which may be the work of a pupil) has been rendered in a perfunctory manner. Napoleon is shown wearing the uniform of the Chasseurs à cheval.
M10|1|1|After the final defeat of Napoloen Augustin enjoyed generous patronage not only from the restored Bourbons but from some of the many foreign visitors who flocked to Paris. The subject of this miniature ascended the Dutch throne in 1840 - at the posthulous sale of his art collection in 1850 the 4th Marquess of Hertford was one of the principal purchasers.The presence of this miniature in the Wallace Collection may, however, be explained by the sitter's military career. In 1811 he was aide-de-camp to the Duke of Wellington. He fought in the Peninsular war and at the Battle of Waterloo. The 4th Marquess of Hertford may well have known him.
M14|1|1|In Augustin's posthumous sale, 19-21 December 1839, there was a painting of a young bacchante by Greuze which was almost certainly the basis for this miniature. It was probably similar to Greuze, 'Bacchante', P407). Although the girl in this miniature does not wear a leopard's skin, one of the traditional attributes of bacchantes (the female followers of Bacchus, the god of wine), she is identifiable as a bacchante from her abandoned pose and the vine eaves in her hair.
M17|1|1|Louis-Nicolas van Blarenberghe’s ‘Fair of St-Germain’ ranks amongst the most fascinating images of life in eighteenth-century Paris. Its shape and size suggest that it was originally mounted on the lid or bottom of an oval gold box. That the miniature was reused and later framed as an independent work testifies to its extraordinary quality, and its attractiveness to later collectors.<br>The fair of St-Germain, held annually between February and Easter Sunday, was one of the oldest and most popular fairs in Paris. It was housed in semi-permanent buildings where textiles, paintings and other fashionable and luxury goods were among the items on sale. It developed into a centre for the theatre and was crucial in the development of the Commedia dell’arte. We now know that in this image, the theatre is given particular prominence.<br>A great fire destroyed the fair’s installations during the night of 16 March 1762, the year before van Blarenberghe painted the miniature. From late 1762, It was quickly rebuilt as a different structure and reopened by 3 February 1763 when a first theatre performance was given. Until recently, there was some uncertainty as to whether van Blarenberghe’s miniature commemorates the old (destroyed) interior of the fair, or the new one that replaced it. It now been established that not only does it represent the building before the fire, when it was covered by a large timber roof, but also that it offers a view of an exact location in the fair. A small detail, the ‘Nicolet’ sign over the grand pedimented doorway in the centre of the image tells us that this is the entrance to the Nicolet theatre, in front of which a dense crowd has gathered. Through the adjacent glass door on the right, we are offered a glimpse of a puppet show taking place under the stage; the banner hanging above the hall on the upper right of the miniature identifies it as a production by the leading family of puppeteers and theatrical producers, established by Nicolas Bienfait I. This fascinating image offers a very rare glimpse into commercial enterprise in eighteenth-century France: the picture dealers’ stall in the upper left, the parasol seller below, as well as the threatical performances.<br>Very few miniatures of theatre scenes and public entertainment can be securely attributed to Louis-Nicolas. Several more were painted when he apparently worked with his son between 1769 and 1778, but they constitute a small fraction of their overall output and are remarkably rare. ‘The Fair of Saint-Germain’ is the masterpiece of the genre.
M20|1|1|The popular title, 'Collina', refers to the little hill on which Lady Gertrude stands. Lady Gertrude was the younger sister of Lady Anne Fitzpatrick, who was painted by Reynolds c.1775; a miniature copy in enamel by Bone of this portrait is also in the Wallace Collection (M19). Both miniatures may have been acquired by the 3rd Marquess of Hertford for their quality as works of art, but perhaps a friendship between the Hertford and Upper Ossory families explains their presence in the 3rd Marquess's collection.
M21|1|1|Henry Bone was appointed Enamel Painter to George III, George IV and William IV and achieved extraordinary financial success with his copies in enamel after Old Master paintings. This enamel is after an oil painting by the French artist Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun (1755-1842) now in a private collection. It shows Emma, Lady Hamilton (1765-1815), the famous wife of Sir William Hamilton, British Envoy in Naples, and mistress of the great naval hero Lord Nelson. The original was painted in 1790. Bone\’s copy was commissioned by Sir William Hamilton and bequeathed by him to Nelson in the year it was painted. Emma is shown as a bacchante, a follower of Dionysus, the Greek god of wine. However, Vigée Le Brun also referred to the painting as a representation of Ariadne, the daughter of the King of Crete who helped the Greek hero Theseus to escape from the Labyrinth but who was abandoned by him on the island of Naxos (as Emma was abandoned by her first protector Charles Greville). (The ship on the horizon may therefore be carrying the departing Theseus.) In a further twist to this complex image, Emma\'s long hair, recumbent pose and revealing dress also evoke many traditional represntations of the Magdalen - perhaps an appropriate reference in view of her colourful early history which included time as a prostitute.<br>The 4th Marquess of Hertford acquired the miniature in 1859 at the sale of the 2nd Baron Northwick through his London agent Samuel Mawson, who had informed him that \'Lady Hamilton is very beautiful.\'
M23|1|1|The inscription on the counter-enamel indicates that at the time it was made this miniature was thought to be a portrait of Anne Hyde, Duchess of York and Albany (1637-71), wife of the future James II.
M26|1|1|Rosamund Croker was a great favourite of George IV.
M27|1|1|This miniature was bought by the 4th Marquess of Hertford the year after he acquired the original oil painting by Lawrence. The sitter was known to both the 4th Marquess and his father.
M29|1|1|The sitter, who has long brown hair (or wig) and brown eyes, wears seventeenth-century armour with a white cravat and blue cloak. The miniature is painted on vellum laid on prepared card. It is signed and dated on the back in silverpoint ‘L. Bourdin, 1693’; Bourdin (active 1691-1716) painted miniatures of snuff-box lids in 1715 and 1716. An inscription written in another hand on the back of the frame identifies the sitter as the Duke of Argyll. The sitter’s identity has been confirmed by its resemblance to engraved portraits of the duke. Archibald Campbell, 9th Earl and 1st Duke of Argyll was restored in 1690 to the titles and estates which his father had forfeited on conviction for treason in 1681. The refusal of the MacDonalds to submit to his rule led to the massacre of Glencoe in 1692. His daughter Caroline married General Henry Seymour-Conway, younger brother of the 1st Marquess of Hertford, which may explain the presence of this miniature in the collection.
M30|1|1|The unidentified sitter, who has red hair, moustache and beard and brown eyes, wears a black doublet with a white collar embroidered with black and a black cap. He wears a black ribbon around his neck. He is depicted against a vivid blue background surrounded by a gold rim.<br>It is painted on vellum laid on a playing card (with one club showing). According to the miniatures specialist Graham Reynolds, it is an English work of the sixteenth century, painted in c. 1550-60, in the interval between the deaths of Holbein and Horenbout and the emergence of Hilliard.
M31|1|1|The sitter wears a white dress, trimmed with lace and blue ribbons, and a crimson cloak. Her powdered brown hair is tied with a blue ribbon and a gold ornament set with a red stone. Although once considered to belong to the British school, the handling appears to be more characteristically French. The costume and hairstyle suggest a date of c. 1690-1700.
M32|1|1|Barbara Villiers, Duchess of Cleveland, was a noted court beauty. In 1659 she married Roger Palmer, later Earl of Castlemaine, although by the following year she was the mistress of Charles II, to whom she bore five children. She was created a Lady of the Bedchamber to Catherine of Braganza in 1662 and Duchess of Cleveland in 1670.<br>The miniature derives from a portrait by Lely painted in c. 1664, which exists in several versions (e.g. Knole, National Trust). The diagonal parallel striations in the painting of the flesh tones suggests an attribution to Richard Gibson (1615-1690).
M33|1|1|The sitter, Anne Hyde (1637-71), is depicted turned to the left with her head turned towards the viewer. She wears a copper-coloured dress with ropes of pearls and jewels at her breast, and she plays with her long hair with her right hand.<br>Anne Hyde was the daughter of the 1st Earl of Clarendon. She secretly married James, Duke of York, in 1660. This portrait miniature is based on a three-quarter-length portrait by Peter Lely (Royal Collection) of which there are many replicas.
M39|1|1|The sitter, George IV when Prince of Wales, is depicted wearing the ribbon and star of the order of the Garter. The portrait miniature derives from a portrait of the prince by Sir Joshua Reynolds exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1785. The miniature is signed by the artist, Peter Adolf Hall (1739-1793), in the right background.<br>The Hertford family owned several portraits of George IV (see P563, P559), who was on close terms with the 2nd Marchioness of Hertford (particularly between 1806 and 1820) and her son Lord Yarmouth, later 3rd Marquess of Hertford.
M40|1|1|John Hazlitt was the elder brother of the much better known writer and painter William Hazlitt. He exhibited portraits at the Royal Academy from 1788 to 1819. Mary Robinson was an actress and author, and was the first mistress of the Prince of Wales, later George IV. She was often known as 'Perdita' after her role in 'The Winter's Tale' when she first attracted the attention of the Prince of Wales. The 2nd Marquess of Hertford and his wife were loyal friends of Mrs Robsinson, They acquired portraits of her by Romney, Reynolds and Gainsborough - the last being P42 in the Wallace Collection. A further portrait by Reynolds (P45) was acquired by the 4th Marquess much later, in 1859. All these are now in the Wallace Collection with the exception of the first by Reynolds, the model for this miniature, which is at Waddesdon Manor, Buckinghamshire (National Trust). Painted in 1782, it was bought by the 2nd Marquess of Hertford at auction in 1796, and sold by the 6th Marquess in 1894 or later. Although John Hazlitt is little known now, he was an able artist. Here he has deftly captured Reynolds's manner, even on this much reduced scale, and has defined Perdita's powdered hair, her lace and feathers with great delicacy.
M56|1|1|Among Charlier’s earlier patrons were the households of King Louis XV and of Mme de Pompadour. Later in his career, he is recorded as having received important commissions from the leading Parisian collectors of the time. When he died in 1790 he left a sizeable art collection.<br>However, the fact that on 20th October 1778 Charlier staged a sale of ninety of his own works indicates that he was experiencing financial difficulties at that time, probably due to changes in taste away from the Rococo. Another sale in the following year was a disaster. Charlier’s output (as it has been traditionally understood) was so closely linked with the style of the mid century and in particular with Boucher’s work, that he was bound to meet difficulties as soon as the art of the Rococo began to fall out of favour.<br>A productive career of more than sixty years leaves considerable space for stylistic development. This miniature is probably an example of Charlier’s later work. The position of all three figures in a shallow front plane, the triangular composition and the very pale colour scheme all fit within the framework of developed Neoclassicism. While the figures are based on Boucher, they have lost his fluency of touch and Baroque force and seem closer to works by Louis-Jean-François Lagrénée (1724-1805). Charlier’s ‘Diana and Nymphs Bathing’, also in the Wallace Collection (M51), shares similar traits and must date from the same later period in the artist’s career.
M61|1|1|This miniature is one of a small number of larger miniatures on vellum by Charlier in the Wallace Collection. Its subject was formerly given as of nymphs and putti, but the doves, the bow of the putto and the flower garlands indicate that the main figure should be identified as Venus, accompanied by two members of her following.<br>Here Charlier combines in one miniature figures from several paintings by François Boucher. The reclining figure on the right, and the woman in the background, both appear, similarly spaced, in the background of Boucher’s ‘Venus in the Forge of Vulcan’, 1757, Paris. Charlier has combined these with two figures from Boucher’s ‘Aurora and Cephalus’, in the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. Charlier made the figure of Aurora the central feature but reduced the drapery covering the lower body of the woman on Boucher’s painting.<br>While Boucher’s ‘Venus in the Forge of Vulcan’ was painted in 1757 as a tapestry cartoon and afterwards kept at the Gobelins factory, ‘Aurora and Cephalus’ was part of a series of six canvases painted in 1769 for the financier Jean-François Bergeret. While ‘Venus in the Forge of Vulcan’ was accessible in the reserves of the Gobelins, it might have been slightly more difficult for Charlier to have access to Bergeret’s Parisian town house. It was probably easier to see it in Boucher’s studio or use Boucher’s own material, lending support to the idea that Charlier had some form of professional connection with Boucher.
M63|1|1|One lesser-known aspect of the Wallace Collection is the large number of Boucher-related miniatures in the collection. Charlier, who spent a period working in Boucher’s studio, specialised in such miniatures which enjoyed great popularity in eighteenth-century France. Many of his works, painted for the open market, reveal a taste for the erotic female nude paralleled by that seen in the print trade at the same period. Here the pose of the figure of Venus recalls that of the sleeping Nereid in the foreground of Boucher’s The Setting of the Sun.
M67|1|1|Today, the French miniature painter Jacques Charlier is mainly known for his mythological and erotic scenes in the style of Boucher but it is documented that he produced many portrait miniatures. Although he worked for some of the most important patrons of his age, little is known about his life.<br>Among the miniatures associated with Charlier’s name this represents one of the most direct copies after a Boucher painting. Its model is a painting of Clio, the Muse of history, in the Wallace Collection (P490), which was possibly painted as an overdoor for Mme de Pompadour in the mid-1750s. The miniature was painted directly after the painting as it follows the colours and composition closely – and it must have been executed before the original canvas was enlarged at an unknown date.<br>Miniature painters often followed compositions of easel painters in their figurative compositions because they had usually not received a full academic training. Charlier is a case in point. What today is known of his work refers to Boucher so often and so openly that his training with Boucher has been assumed. It is as likely that some working arrangement between the two artists existed. Charlier might have been charged with reproducing Boucher’s work in miniature in the same way that several print makers did for the print market.<br>Charlier’s work was avidly collected in the mid nineteenth century, at the same time when major collectors became interested in Boucher. The 4th Marquess of Hertford assembled the most important group of works by Boucher in the world and also by far the largest group of works attributed to Charlier. The 4th Marquess was exclusively interested in Charlier’s mythological scenes and his erotic work. Because of their small scale and personal character, these miniatures were often highly erotic scenes, occasionally bordering on the pornographic.
M69|1|1|The miniature depicts a group of four people – two men and two women – in the open air. A trellis pavilion in the left background indicates that the scene is set in a garden. The main characters are dressed in pastoral but elegant costume. The man on the left has put his musette aside. The musette (a variant on the bag pipe) had become a court instrument in late seventeenth-century France and was a stock instrument for the pastoral genre. As such it was also depicted regularly in portraits with pastoral overtones and in fêtes galantes.<br>The elements of this scene derive from fêtes galantes by Antoine Watteau (1684-1721) and, even more directly, Nicolas Lancret (1690-1743). Lancret’s Midday in the National Gallery, London, is just one of a number of works by the painter which could have served as a model for several elements used in the miniature.<br>Whereas the fête galante elements in the miniature are undeniable, the individual faces of the four characters suggest that it was intended as a group portrait in pastoral guise. Portraits using the formula of the fête galante showing the characters dressed in pastoral style were common in the second and third quarters of the eighteenth century. They conveyed friendship and a sense of carefree sociability, more usual in more private types of portraiture. Miniature portraits often had a very similar purpose.<br>An old inscription on the back wrongly attributes the miniature to Jacques Charlier.
M71|1|1|The miniature is a nineteenth-century copy after a painting by Jean-Baptiste-Marie Pierre painted for Voyer d'Argenson's chateau Asnieres. The subject is taken from Ovid, 'Metamorposes', I.
M100|1|1|Louis-Charles, Duke of Normandy (1785-1795), was the third child and second son of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette. When his elder brother Louis-Joseph died in June 1789, Louis-Charles became his successor as Dauphin. Together with the royal family he was imprisoned in the Temple in August 1792. He died in 1795, still imprisoned, as a result of the ill treatment he received.<br>The miniature is signed by Dumont. Although its attribution and signature have been doubted, the style is sufficiently close to other signed and documented works by the artist for it to be accepted as his work. François Dumont became Marie-Antoinette’s favourite miniature painter after the death of the Italian artist Ignazio Pio Vittoriano Campana in 1786. He produced numerous portraits of the Queen and also painted the Dauphin several times. In Dumont’s manuscript list of his own miniatures, under 1790 the Dauphin features twice on his own and was also listed in portraits with his mother and elder sister. While he does not appear in the list for the following years, a posthumous portrait of the Dauphin by Dumont was shown at the Salon of 1814.<br>It seems likely that the portrait is posthumous and was painted as a Royalist token after the death of the child. The style of the miniature does not seem to tally with a date of 1814 but it is conceivable that Dumont was exhibiting then a work he had painted earlier, or that this miniature is another earlier posthumous portrait of the Dauphin.
M83|1|1|Sarah (1786-1851), daughter of the 2nd Earl of Mexborough, married in 1807 the 4th Baron Monson (died 1809) and later, in 1816, Henry, 3rd Earl of Warwick.
M84|1|1|This portrait miniature is a good copy of an unfinished portrait of Charles II by Samuel Cooper of an unknown date, at Chiddingstone Castle. King Charles is depicted wearing the Lion Armour, white collar and ribbon of the Order of the Garter. It is notable for its informality (the sitter is shown turning his shoulders and head to the right and appears relaxed) in contrast to the frontally-posed official portraits of the king.
M85|1|1|This portrait derives from the portrait of Oliver Cromwell in armour by Samuel Cooper, signed and dated 1656 (now in the National Portrait Gallery; NPG 3065), which was in turn based on Cooper’s famous unfinished portrait of Cromwell in the collection of the Duke of Buccleuch. Cooper’s miniatures of Cromwell were celebrated for their frank naturalism.<br>The miniature is attributed to the Swedish goldsmith and painter Christian Richter (1678-1732), who worked in England from 1702 until his death. In the first decade of the eighteenth century, Richter made a number of copies after Cooper’s portraits of Cromwell, particularly versions of the Buccleuch portrait. The inscription ‘Sum possessor/C Richter 1708’ on the reverse indicates that Richter owned one of Cooper’s versions of the portrait.
M87|1|1|Richard Cosway was by far the most famous and successful English miniature painter of the later eighteenth century. In 1781 he married Maria Hadfield (1760–1838), who had moved to London after growing up in an English expatriate family in Florence. She was an important painter in her own right, an accomplished musician and, together with her husband, the centre of a highly fashionable circle. Their marriage contributed to their carefully organized joint social and business success. The Cosways were celebrities of their day, famous both as artists and as social figures. Their stormy relationship and affairs added to the public interest in them.<br>This portrait miniature is regarded as one of Cosway’s greatest masterpieces. An inscription at the back identifies the sitter as Mrs Fitzherbert (Maria Smythe), mistress and illegal wife of the Prince of Wales. However, documented portraits prove that this identification is untenable. The features of the woman are entirely different from Fitzherbert’s, whose eyes, in a miniature by Cosway that is genuinely of her, are brown. Stephen Lloyd suggested in 2005 that the sitter might be Cosway’s wife Maria, and comparisons with documented portraits of her strongly support the identification.<br>The previous identification of the sitter as Mrs Fitzherbert might have made the miniature of particular interest to the Hertford family. She was like a second mother to the 4th Marquess after he had been called back to England by his father in 1816 to receive an English education.
M88|1|1|Richard Cosway became the most fashionable English miniature painter of the late eighteenth century, having developed a distinctive style of miniature painting. He has an unerring sense of style and chose attitudes for his sitters according to contemporary ideas of elegance and sensibility. His artistic hallmark became his brilliant way of using the surface of the ivory as part of the miniatures colour scheme, mainly for the fashionably pale skin of the sitters.<br>In Cosway’s portrait of Miss Crofton this effect is pushed further than intended by the artist. As the comparison with other works in the Wallace Collection (M87 and 2007.2) demonstrates, this miniature has not reached the same level of finish. While the head of the sitter and part of the background above her head might already have reached the final stage, the woman’s upper body and dress have only been roughly sketched out. In its half finished state, the miniature gives a fascinating insight into his technique. A first outline in grey was used to determine the composition, before different brushstrokes in different colours. Cosway obviously did not work evenly across the surface but finished certain areas before he touched on the next part. Miss Crofton’s face features delicate browns and reds. Cosway was an assiduous and efficient portrait painter, recorded to have had up to twelve sittings in one day. The portrait of Miss Crofton fives us an impression of what a portrait miniature might have looked like after the first sitting.
M92|1|1|Gustavus III (1746-92) was King of Sweden from 1771 until his assassination at a masked ball in 1792. The King is shown wearing armour and the cloak of the Order of the Seraphim, a Swedish royal order initiated by King Frederick in 1748, only awarded to the royal family and foreign heads of state.<br>The portrait is signed and dated ‘Coteau’ on the right-hand edge. Jean Coteau (c. 1739-after 1812) was born in Geneva, and specialised in painting enamel miniatures. He may have been the ‘Coteau’ recorded at the Royal Manufactory at Sèvres from 1780-1784.
M95|1|1|Cournerie painted pastiches of eighteenth-century portraits. This miniature is presumably a copy after an eighteenth-century painting, but the original has not been identified. The vase by the sitter is decorated with a portrait bust in profile of Marie-Antoinette's husband, Louis XVI. Another portrait of Marie-Antoinette by Cournerie is M94.
M96|1|1|Cournerie painted pastiches of eighteenth-century portraits. This miniature is a copy after the central part of Boucher's famous portrait of Madame de Pompadour (Munich, Alte Pinakothek, 1756 (no. HUW 18)) or one of its versions.
M101|1|1|This full-length portrait of a female painter is one of the most beautiful miniatures by Francois Dumont. The sitter was formerly identified as Elisabeth-Louise Vigée-Le Brun (1755–1842), by far the best known female painter of the period. However, there is no real resemblance between her self-portraits and Dumont’s miniature. It has also been suggested that the sitter might be Dumont’s wife, Marie-Nicole Vestier (1767–1846), who would have been twenty-six in 1793, but evidence for this identification is inconclusive.<br>In 1981, Joseph Baillio and Sarah Wells-Robertson proposed to identify the sitter, instead, as the painter Marguerite Gérard (1761–1837), who was thirty-two when the miniature was painted. The identification of the sitter as Gérard was based on two other miniatures by Dumont and is supported by the miniature’s provenance from the Fragonard family. Since the re-identification of the Wallace Collection miniature, it has often been reproduced as a genuine contemporary portrait of Gérard, one of the foremost genre painters of the late eighteenth century and the first important female genre painter in France. She was not able to become a member of the Parisian Academy, which had limited the number of its female members to four. Only after the revolution was she allowed to exhibit at the Salon, which by then was open to all artists. Works by her hand of the size of the blank canvas shown on the miniature, however, are not known. She was the sister of Marie-Anne Fragonard and lived with her and her brother-in-law Jean-Honoré Fragonard.
M102|1|1|The sitter was the daughter of Ferdinand I, King of the Two Sicilies. She married Ferdinand, Prince of the Asturias (and later King Ferdinand VII of Spain) in 1802. The little-known artist, although French, worked chiefly in Naples.
M105|1|1|Henriette Sontag was one of the leading operatic and concert sopranos of her time. Fiocchi was a pupil of Ingres and 'Isabey' (presumably Jean-Baptiste). He never exhibited at the Paris Salon, but achieved sufficient renown to be commissioned by the state in 1855 to paint a copy in miniature of Winterhalter's full-length portrait of the Empress Eugénie. His miniatures are rare, and it is perhaps surprising that there are as many as four in the Wallace Collection - suggesting that he may have been known personally to Lord Hertford or Richard Wallace. A label on the back of the Wallace Collection's miniature, 'Winterhalter 8br. 1842', suggests that the miniature is after Franx Xavier Winterhalter, which may well be partially correct - the style and composition recall Winterhalter's works, but of the late 1840s and early 1850s, rather than 1842.
M119|1|1|Marie Leszczynska (1703-68), daughter of Stanislaus Leszczynski, Duke of Lorraine and former King of Poland, married King Louis XV of France in 1725 when he was fifteen. They had ten children together. This miniature is based on a famous portrait of the Queen by Jean-Marc Nattier painted in 1748, today in the Châteaux de Versailles. The present artist portrayed the Queen in bust rather than three-quarter length. Many painted copies of Nattier's iconic portrait are known, including a reduced version at the Wallace Collection (P437).
M137|1|1|A mid nineteenth-century imitation by an unknown artist of an eighteenth-century portrait of Catherine in old age.
M186|1|1|Peter Adolf Hall was one of the most important European miniature painters of the eighteenth century. He almost exclusively painted portraits, but also produced a small number of works in enamels, oils, pastels, large-scale gouaches and watercolours. Hall’s fame was based on the animated and natural character of his portraits and on his brilliant loose brushwork, using the more painterly qualities of contemporary easel paintings for traditionally more meticulous miniatures. Through this stylistic device, miniatures gained a new immediacy and a sketch-like character very much in keeping with the taste of the third quarter of the eighteenth century.<br>This portrait of the painter’s wife, sister-in-law and daughter is often considered Hall’s masterpiece. It shows his wife Adelaïde née Gobin (1752–1832), holding probably their second daughter Lucie, born in 1774. Adelaïde’s younger sister, Marie-Victoire, the comtesse de la Serre, holds a rattle and teething stick for the child. The miniature in the Wallace Collection is one of the most brilliant examples of Hall’s portraiture, his most ambitious group portrait and an outstanding example of the free brushwork lauded by his contemporaries.<br>The importance of the piece is reflected in the high price of 19,000 francs that Richard Wallace paid for it when he bought the miniature in 1872. Before then, it can be traced back through several Parisian nineteenth-century collections. The Wallace Collection preserves the most important group of Hall’s works after the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm and the Louvre.
M110|1|1|This ‘Head of a Girl’ belongs to a group of miniatures which all have a close relationship with the work of Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732–1806). They are similar in style and subject to his work and have traditionally been attributed to Fragonard. Occasionally, they have been regarded as works by his wife Marie-Anne, and for good reason this theory has more recently gained support. Marie-Anne Fragonard is mentioned as a miniature painter in eighteenth-century sources. She exhibited at the Salon de la Correspondance, a regular independent art exhibition, in 1779 and 1782, and her name appears in several catalogues in the eighteenth century. While it is certain that Marie-Anne was working as a miniature painter, any evidence for Jean-Honoré’s activity in this area is slim. Only in a few isolated cases is a miniature related to Jean-Honoré in the earlier sources. It would have been most unusual if he had practiced miniature painting. While miniature painters ventured occasionally into making larger drawings and easel paintings, we know of no major easel painter of the period who was also active regularly as a painter of miniatures. A combination of pastel and miniature painting seems to have been more usual. In the case of the ‘Head of a Girl’, the title of a slightly later engraving by an otherwise unknown artist, Delaneau, confirms that it was painted by Marie-Anne. Another ‘Head of a Girl’ in the Wallace Collection (M111) might very well be another less successful work by Marie-Anne.
M114|1|1|The sitter, who has black hair, is depicted at bust-length, turning slightly to the right, but her whole face turned to the viewer. She wears a brown dress with a lace collar and a blue cloak embroidered with gold, secured by a jewelled clasp with pendant pearls. There is a resemblance between this sitter and numerous portraits of Marie Mancini, Princess Colonna (1639-1715), including those by Mignard and attributed to Jacob-Ferdinand Vouet. The author of this portrait miniature is unknown.
M120|1|1|Pendant to M121. Cournerie painted pastiches of eighteenth-century portraits. This miniature is a copy after a painting by Nattier (version: Stockholm, Nationalmuseum, no. 1186). Henriette, duchesse d'Orléans (1726-59) was the mother of Louis-Philipe, duc d'Orléans (1747-93), known as Philippe Egalité.
M123|1|1|This miniature is based, with variations in the costume, on the state portrait by L. M. Van Loo painted in 1761. Another miniature, following the Van Loo more closely, is in the collection of H.M. The Queen at Windsor Castle, signed by J. D. Welper. This miniature does not appear to be by the same hand.
M128|1|1|A crass nineteenth-century pastiche in which the head of a voyeuristic young man has been added to a composition derived largely from Lancret's 'Girls Bathing', P408).
M148|1|1|This is a work of poor quality by an unknown artist derived ultimately from Gros's portrait of Bonaparte (1796; Paris, Louvre)
M150|1|1|The execution of this miniature is too poor to be by Augustin himself but has some similarities to his manner. Catherine was the daughter of Frederick I of Württemberg. She married Napoleon's younger brother Jérôme Bonaparte, King of Westphalia (see Augustin, 'Jérôme Bonaparte, King of Westphalia', M7)
M151|1|1|A work of very pedestrian quality. For an image of the sitter of far higher quality see M4.
M152|1|1|Marie-Louise, daughter of Francis I of Austria, marrid Napoleon in 1810 as his second wife after his divorce from Joséphine. Napoleon hoped that Marie-Louise would be able to bear him the son that Joséphine had been unable to provide. This she duly did in March 1811, with the birth of a son who was immediately given the title King of Rome.
M158|1|1|The identity of the artist of this miniature is unknown. It derives from a portrait attributed to François Gérard in a French private collection. Mlle Mars was probably the leading French actress of her time (see also Jean-Baptiste Isabey, 'Mademoiselle Mars', M224).
M172|1|1|There are several versions of this composition, but the artist responsible for the original is uncertain.
M175|1|1|Göstl was a Viennese artist who was employed at the Vienna porcelain factory painting ceramic plaques but occasionally worked in other media. Although only half-length, and different in some details of dress and composition, this miniature apparently derives from the full-length portrait in oils of Catherine the Great by Johann Baptist Lampi the Elder (1751-1830), the first version of which, painted in 1793, is now in the Hermitage, St. Petersburg. It is an imposing image of Catherine which, for all her Enlightenment sympathies, makes clear her status as an autocratic ruler.
M177|1|1|The two sitters, Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire (1757-1806) and Lady Elizabeth Christiana Foster née Harvey (1757-1824), were celebrities of their time and key players in one of the most high-profile English society scandals of the period. Georgiana, née Spencer, married the Duke of Devonshire in 1774 and immediately became a fashion icon and celebrity. In 1782 the Devonshires met Lady Elizabeth Foster, who soon became the Duke’s, and possibly also the Duchess’s, lover. After Georgiana’s death, Elizabeth became the Duke’s second wife. The love lives of both women, which included further affairs, their public ménage à trois with the Duke, and the battles between the three protagonists were eagerly followed by a wide public.<br>The Duchess of Devonshire and Lady Elizabeth stayed together in Paris twice, between May and August 1790 and again in November and December of 1791. The second stay correlates with a note in Jean-Urbain Guérin’s journal that he made a drawing of the Duchess on 12 November 1791. The miniature can thus be dated to 1791, a time when Georgiana had just been sent into exile by her husband, after becoming pregnant with her daughter Eliza Courtney by the Whig politician Charles Grey. Foster accompanied the Duchess into exile. Guérin’s miniature should be understood as a token of friendship, even love, between the two women, emphasized by the fact that two versions were painted, one for each sitter. Both women returned to England in 1793 to continue their previous living arrangement with the Duke.
M132|1|1|Cournerie painted pastiches of eighteenth-century portraits. This miniature, similar to his style, is presumably a copy after an eighteenth-century painting, but the original has not been identified.
M154|1|1|This is a miniature of poor quality by an unknown artist, painted in the mid nineteenth century. For a portrait of Josephine of similar composition but much higher quality see M5.
M157|1|1|After the fall of Napoleon Saint continued to enjoy much official success, being made Painter to Louis XVIII in 1818 and later to Charles X. He was appointed a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour in 1836. In 1827 Saint exhibited a miniature of Charles X at the Paris Salon. The quality of this miniature is too poor for it to be the Salon version, though it may be related to it compositionally.
M162|1|1|Sir William Ross was the most prestigious painter of miniatures in Britain in the early years of Queen Victoria's reign. The Empress Eugénie, who married Napoleon III in 1853, paid a state visit to England with her husband in 1855 which was a great success. This miniature was presumably painted during or soon after their visit to England or one of Ross's frequent trips to Paris. It cannot be later than 1857 as in that year Ross suffered a stroke and was no longer able to paint. There is a replica in the Royal Collection of the Wallace Collection's miniature; it is not known who commissioned the Wallace Collection's version. The brown of the dress in the Wallace Collection's miniature is probably faded from the original red. Eugénie wears a gold-braided mantle or jacket which is probably Spanish. The splendid necklace may be the collar of thirty-eight round and nine pear-shaped pearls which had been mounted for the duchess d'Angoulême at the Restoration and would be sold at the great sale of the French crown jewels in 1887.
M179|1|1|This portrait of two women is inspired by the 'Pompeiian' style of Jean-Urbain Guérin, which involved casting the sitters in profile against a dark background (the artist referred to this as 'en camée’). The present portrait closely resembles Guérin’s double portrait of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire and Lady Foster (M177), which was much imitated by later generations of artists.
M180|1|1|Anne Louise Germaine Necker, baronne de Staël (1766-1817), usually known as Mme de Staël, was the daughter of Louis XVI's famous finance minister Jacques Necker. She was a writer best known for her novel 'Corinne' and for her opposition to Napoleon. She visited England in 1793 and 1812-14, when she was lionized by London society, which makes it likely that at some time she became acquainted with the 2nd Marquess and Marchioness of Hertford, as well as their son, the future 3rd Marquess. This miniature relates closely to a portrait in oil of Mme de Staël and her daughter Albertine attributed to Marguérite Gérard which is now in the Musée de Coppet, Switzerland. Both portraits show de Staël wearing vaguely classical costume with an embroidered scarf on her head.
M183|1|1|Louis XVI (1754 – 93), grandson of Louis XV, son of Marie-Josèphe, Princesse de Saxe and the Dauphin, Louis, came to the throne in 1774; he fell victim to the guillotine.<br>This miniature is a copy of a state portrait by Louis Michel Van Loo, dated 1769, in the Musée de Versailles. A more ambitious minniature by Hall of Louis XVI, taken to be that exhibited by him in the Salon of 1769, was formerly in the Pierpont Morgan collection. It was his group of miniatures in that Salon which led to the recognition of Hall’s originality and the broad freedom of his style.
M185|1|1|Elizabeth de France (1764 - 94), youngest child of Dauphin, son of Louis XV, by his second wife, Marie-Josèphe of Saxony. She joined her brother's attempted flight in 1791, and was executed in 1794.
M189|1|1|This miniature shows the artist’s eldest child, Adélaïde-Victorine. A label on the back of the frame indicates it was exhibited in the Paris Salon of 1785 (no. 139). The submissions to the Salon were important for artists and their future success. Very often they tried to exhibit a careful selection of different works, demonstrating the entire spectrum of their abilities. The exhibition catalogue of 1785 described no. 139 as several portraits and study heads under the same number. Only the label on the back confirms that this miniature formed part of the group.<br>The work could not have been intended as a portrait in the strictest sense of the word. Adélaïde-Victorine was born in 1772. Assuming that the miniature was painted shortly before the Salon, she can only have been thirteen at the time. The revealed breast and the openly erotic character of the depiction seem particularly inappropriate, but it is worth noting that the miniature might have been shown without any reference to the identity of the sitter. Hall refers in this image to a well-known type of painting by his extremely successful contemporary, Jean-Baptiste Greuze (1725-1805), who was widely known for eroticized half-length paintings of anonymous girls and young women. Hall’s miniature is directly based on two of Greuze’s works, the ‘Girl with a Gauze Scarf’ in the Wallace Collection and ‘La Crûche cassée’ in the Louvre. Hall would have seen this work as a miniature version of Greuze’s erotic genre paintings rather than as a portrait.
M193|1|1|On the basis of a handwritten note on the back of the miniature, the woman has traditionally been identified as Jeanne-Philiberte Ledoux (1767-1840), painter, pupil of Jean-Baptiste Greuze and daughter of the architect Claude-Nicolas Ledoux. Unfortunately, this attractive theory cannot be sustained. Two documented portraits of Ledoux – her self-portrait in Paris (Musée des Arts Décoratifs) and her portrait by Jean-Baptiste Greuze (Durham, North Carolina, Semans Collection) – show a woman with quite different features and dark, brownish eyes, not the bright blue eyes of Hall’s miniature.<br>The painting on the easel in the background has been considered the work of the sitter but there is no indication that the woman in Hall’s portrait is actually a painter. She is holding neither the pen or chalk nor the brush and palette that usually feature in the portrait of a painter. The painting on the easel is a seventeenth-century work, as the dress and hairstyle of the sitter and style of the painting indicate. In the early nineteenth century it was identified as a portrait of Henri IV’s minister, the duc de Sully, but the resemblance is not convincing. It bears some resemblance to portraits of the Swedish King Gustavus Adolphus, leader of the Protestants during the Thirty Years War and a Swedish national hero. A portrait miniature of Gustavus Adolphus by Hall after a seventeenth-century model is known.<br>The style of the miniature and the woman’s dress seem to indicate that the miniature was painted shortly before Hall left France in 1791.
M202|1|1|The sitter is Thomas, 1st Baron Coventry of Aylesborough (1578-1640). He was appointed Solicitor-General in 1617, Attorney-General in 1621, and Lord Keeper of the Great Seal in 1625. He became first Baron Coventry in 1628. He is depicted wearing a black doublet and holding the Great Seal, which he received in 1625. The style is considered to be a weaker interpretation of that of Nicholas Hilliard, and the post-1625 date would indicate that it is by the master’s fourth son, Laurence Hilliard (1582-1647/8).
M203|1|1|This miniature shows the German-born painter Hans Holbein the Younger (1497/8 – 1543). The artist’s bust is shown against a strong blue background, while Holbein’s monogram, the year 1543 and the painter’s age in that year – the year of his death - are inscribed in gold capital letters on the blue background. The identification can be proven by the comparison with Holbein’s self-portrait drawing in the Uffizi in Florence, which also shows Holbein at the age of forty-five, just before his death.<br><br>The miniature passed through several important British collections, where it was long regarded as a self-portrait of the artist. Its quality and its provenance make it an outstanding example of an antiquarian and artistic interest in Holbein, who was venerated as the founding figure of painting in Britain. It has, however, proved difficult to determine the author of this famous work. The miniature is considerably different in style from Holbein’s accepted miniatures, and since the 1950’s the attribution to Holbein has gradually and correctly been abandoned.<br><br>Until recently, the miniature was attributed to the Flemish-born Lucas Horenbout, who came to England with his father, the book illuminator Gerard Horenbout, and his sister Susanna in the mid 1520s. Lucas Horenbout is first mentioned in Henry VIII’s chamber accounts in September 1525 and he died in 1544. The artist is only known from these sources and no documented works by him exist. Attributing portrait pictures to him thus remains highly conjectural.
M204|1|1|The sitter is depicted wearing a brown doublet shot with gold, and a white collar tied with white tasselled strings. He may be identified as Edward, 1st Earl of Conway (c. 1623-83), on the basis of some similarity with his portrait at Ragley Hall. He was Lord Lieutenant of Warwickshire in 1681. An inscription (perhaps an eighteenth-century hand) on the back identifies him as ‘Edw. E. of Conway’ and on the back the case is engraved ‘Edward/Lord Conway.’<br>The miniature is regarded as a fine example of John Hoskin’s mature manner.
M205|1|1|Samuel Cooper, the foremost miniature painter of his generation, learned his art with his uncle, the London miniature painter John Hoskins (c.1590-1664/5). Cooper’s earliest signed miniature is of Van Dyck’s mistress, Margaret Lemon (Paris, Fondation Custodia), and indeed Van Dyck’s influence on Cooper’s work is obvious and was commented upon by contemporaries. The young Cooper could have known the Flemish painter personally.<br>Cooper set up an independent studio in c.1641-2, right at the beginning of the Civil War, and by 1650 was a financially successful artist. His career survived all regime changes. During the Commonwealth, he painted official miniature portraits of Cromwell and in 1663 was appointed miniature painter to Charles II. By the end of his career he was wealthy, famous and well-connected and regarded as the most important European portrait miniature painter.<br>While Cooper’s earlier works directly follow Van Dyck’s model in their combination of psychological understanding and easy elegance, his later miniatures seem to focus even more on the individuality of the sitters. The present miniature is a good example of Cooper’s outstanding ability to capture the character of his sitter through an unflattering, but sympathetic rendering of the features. The man’s alertness is balanced by his courtier’s pose. The sitter of the miniature is unknown. The style of the miniature is closer to Cooper’s work of the mid to late 1660’s.
M207|1|1|The sitter, who wears armour with a white collar, has been identified as James Graham (1612-50), who became 5th Earl of Montrose in 1626, on the basis of a resemblance to a portrait by William Dobson. He adopted the cause of Charles I against Parliament and was created Marquess of Montrose in 1644. After the King’s defeat he fled to Norway but was captured on his return and executed in Edinburgh.<br>The miniature appears to be of 17th-century origin, but the signature of John Hoskins is probably a later addition. It was identified in the Bethnal Green exhibition catalogue of 1870 as a portrait of ‘Lord Falkland/killed in the Battle of Newbury/ 1643.’
M208|1|1|Murat, seen here wearing the uniform of Marshal of the Empire, married in 1800 Napoleon's sister Caroline Bonaparte (see Aubry, 'Caroline Murat, Queen of Naples', M4). He was King of Naples 1808-14. With his wife he conspired with Austria to retain their throne after Napoleon's defeat at Leipzig, but their intrigues were ultimately unsuccessful and in 1815 Murat was executed. See also Isabey, 'Joachim Murat, King of Naples', M248)
M210|1|1|Marie-Louise, daughter of Francis I of Austria, marrid Napoleon in 1810 as his second wife after his divorce from Joséphine. Napoleon hoped that Marie-Louise would be able to bear him the son that Joséphine had been unable to provide. This she duly did in March 1811, with the birth of a son who was immediately given the title King of Rome. As this miniature is dated 1815 it was painted when the Empress and her son were in exile from France - they had left Paris in March 1814. Prseumably it was painted in Vienna or derived from studies made there by Isabey. Isabey and his studio produced many portraits of Marie-Louise, and he first drew the King of Rome when the child was only a few days old. the iamge of Marie-Louise and her son that Isabey presents in this miniature is remarkably informal, perhaps reflecting the reduced (though by no means humbled) circumstances of the sitters in 1815. With no jewellery or regalia visible and the clothes expensive but not luxurious, this could almost be any bourgeois mother with her son.
M211|1|1|This is one of innumerable small bust-length portraits of Napoleon looking to his left painted by Isabey and his studio. They were produced to a similar pattern, the head being adjusted slightly to take account of changes in Napoleon's appearance as he grew older, while the uniform and orders might be altered according to individual circumstances. Here he is shown wearing the uniform of the Chasseurs à cheval, the ribbon and cross of the Legion of Honour, the star of the Iron Crown and the badge of the Grand eagle of the Legion of Honour. The miniature has a frame of green enamel over silver with bees and an eagle (both Napoleonic symbols) at the corners and top.
M213|1|1|The members of Napoleon's large family were also the subject of many portraits. Jérôme Bonaparte was Napoleon's younger brother. For a portrait of the sitter of better quality see M7.
M215|1|1|This is one of innumerable small bust-length portraits of Napoleon looking to his left painted by Isabey and his studio. They were produced to a similar pattern, the head being adjusted slightly to take account of changes in Napoleon's appearance as he grew older, while the uniform and orders might be altered according to individual circumstances. Here he is shown wearing the uniform of the Chasseurs à cheval, the ribbon and cross of the Legion of Honour, the star of the Iron Crown and the badge of the Grand eagle of the Legion of Honour. This miniature is framed with a miniature portrait of Josephine by Isabey (see Isabey, 'The Empress Joséphine', M215)
M216|1|1|Besides producing many portraits of Napoleon, Isabey and his studio also produced many portraits of Napoleon's extensive family. He was also drawing master to the Empress Joséphine. Here he shows her enveloped in gauze, a treatment which helped to hide the signs of ageing and which Isabey frequently used for his female sitters from at least the 1810s. In the Wallace Collection this miniature is framed with an Isabey portrait of Napoleon dated 1812 (see Isabey, 'Napoleon I', M215). It seems unlikely, however, that this pairing was intended by Isabey - not because the couple were divorced by 1812 (see Schopin, 'The Divorce of the Empress Joséphine, P658), but because Joséphine is shown larger than her former husband.
M217|1|1|Marie-Rose Maystre, forty-seven years his junior, married Isabey shortly after the death of his first wife in 1829. She had been one of his many pupils. There must be some unceratinty over either the accepted year of Rose's birth or the identity of the sitter in this miniature, as it is difficult to accept the woman depicted here as only seventeen years old.
M219|1|1|Prince August of Prussia (1779–1843), a nephew of Frederick the Great, fought against Napoleon in several battles, including Jena and Kulm, before in 1806 being captured at Prenzlau (together with his aide-de-camp Von Clausewitz, the great military theoretician). Later he became a notable figure in French society. He is shown here as a splendidly dashing soldier, wearing the uniform of the Prussian Guards and the stars and badges of five orders, including the Iron Cross of Prussia. The frame, by the Parisian maker Wiese and of the mid nineteenth century, is in the form of two laurel branches. The ribbon at the bottom is inscribed 1813, 1814 and 1815 in reference to the campaigns against Napoleon which culminated at the Battle of Waterloo. This miniature demonstrates that Isabey did not confine his impressions of a dashing military man of the Napoleonic era to Frenchmen.
M220|1|1|The sitter in this minature has not been identified. This miniature demonstrates how, by using gauzes to mask some less attractive features, such as a double chin, Isabey could gently flatter a sitter.
M221|1|1|Isabey had many long-standing connections with the theatre. He provided set designs and costumes and frequently depicted actors and actresses. Mme Dugazon was a friend of Isabey and one of the leading French actresses of her time. She sometimes sang at the soirées which Isabey held for his friends. Two types of character for which she was particularly regarded, young women in light romantic roles and mothers of a more mature age, are still known in the French theatre as 'jeunes Dugazons' and 'mères Dugazons'. This miniature is a fine demonstration of how, by using gauzes to mask some less attractive features, such as a double chin, Isabey could gently flatter a sitter.
M222|1|1|The identity of this sitter is unknown, and this is not a work of the highest quality.
M223|1|1|One of the delegates that Isabey was obliged to paint when he attended the Congress of Vienna in 1814-15 was the Duke of Wellington. Their first meeting went badly because Wellington was haughty, but, after realising that he had behaved badly, the Duke returned his visit and Isabey agreed to paint him. The earliest version known today is dated 1816. In most versions Wellington wears the scarlet undress coatee of a British Field Marshal, but this version in the Wallace Collection is unusual (and perhaps unique) in showing him in another uniform - the undress coatee of a Spanish general officer. As he was a Captain General in the Spanish army, it is probably the uniform appropriate to that rank, though it would be necessary to see the cuffs to be certain. The 4th Marquess of Hertford knew the Duke of Wellington which may well help explain his acquisition of this miniature. The low view point Isabey has adopted here, effectively conveying Wellington's hauteur, surely reflects something of the artist's dissatisfaction with their first meeting.
M224|1|1|Mlle Mars was the most important actress on the Parisian stage in the first four decades of the nineteenth century. Isabey had many long-standing connections with the theatre. He provided set designs and costumes and frequently depicted actors and actresses.
M225|1|1|The identity of this sitter is unknown - the traditional attribution to the actress Mlle Leverd (1789-1843) is not tenable - and this is not a work of the highest quality.
M226|1|1|Isabey was the most important figure in French miniature painting of the early nineteenth century.He produced self-portraits throughout his career. Like many of his rivals, he was aware of their value for promoting an artist's career. He painted a self-portrait at least as early as 1786, exhibited one to much acclaim at the Paris Salon of 1796, and two years later, also at the Salon, showed a large drawing in black chalk (a medium in which he also specialized) of himself and his family in a boat which became the basis for a famous engraving ('La Barque') by François Aubertin. As late as 1850, only five years before his death, an engraving of perhaps his last self-portrait was published. In almost every image of Isabey he is shown looking towards his right - presumably because he regarded this as presenting his 'better side'. Here Isabey wears a black coat, white shirt and white stock - fashionable attire for many well-to-do young men in Paris in the late 1790s. The mutton-chop whiskers were also something of a trademark for the artist - on the evidence of his portraits it seems that he retained them for the rest of his life.
M227|1|1|The identity of this sitter is unknown. In 1839, when this miniature was painted, Isabey became 72 years old.
M229|1|1|Probably by Isabey or his large studio, but not of the highest quality. See Isabey, 'Napoleon I', M211. Here Napoleon is wearing the academic costume of the Institut, a French institution which he substantially reformed.
M230|1|1|This is one of innumerable small bust-length portraits of Napoleon looking to his left painted by Isabey and his studio. They were produced to a simialr pattern, the head being adjusted slightly to take account of changes in Napoleon's appearance as he grew older, while the uniform and orders might be altered according to individual circumstances. Here he is shown wearing red Court dress, the Legion of Honour, and a black cap crowned with a golden laurel. The miniature is housed in a silver frame composed of Roman eagles surmounted by the Imperial Crown and showing at the foot the Napoleonic 'N' and the cross of the Legion of Honour. It is therefore possible that this miniature belonged to the Emperor or a member of the Imperial family.
M231|1|1|This is one of innumerable small bust-length portraits of Napoleon looking to his left painted by Isabey and his studio. They were produced to a similar pattern, the head being adjusted slightly to take account of changes in Napoleon's appearance as he grew older, while the uniform and orders might be altered according to individual circumstances. Here he is shown wearing the uniform of the Chasseurs à cheval, the ribbon and cross of the Legion of Honour, the star of the Iron Crown and the badge of the Grand eagle of the Legion of Honour.
M232|1|1|Jean-Baptiste Isabey, who first worked in Paris for Marie-Antoinette, was adept at securing patronage from the varied political systems in power during his long life. Under Napoleon he rose to become Court Painter, providing with the help of a large studio countless miniatures of the Emperor and his extensive family. This is actually a sepia drawing rather than a miniature, but it shows the high quality of draughtsmanship of which Isabey was capable. Napoleon wears robes of state as well as a laurel wreath and the collar of the Legion of Honour. One of Isabey’s duties had been to design the costumes for Napoleon’s coronation in 1804. This is an almost disembodied image of the Emperor as national sovereign rather than as a soldier, though it conforms to Isabey's standard formula of showing Napoleon head and shoulders, looking determinedly towards his left.
M234|1|1|The identity of this sitter is unknown.
M235|1|1|The identity of this sitter is unknown, and this is not a work of the highest quality.
M239|1|1|The identity of this sitter is unknown.
M241|1|1|Louis XVIII, brother of the executed Louis XVI, succeeded as King in 1814 and again, after the Hundred Days, in 1815. Despite his long history of patronage from Napoleon and his Bonapartist sympathies, Isabey (a natural courtier) received commissions from Louis and his family.
M245|1|1|A work of pedestrian quality.
M247|1|1|Eugène de Beauharnais, son of the Empress Joséphine by her first marriage, was an able soldier and administrator who was much involved in many of Napoleon's campaigns between 1800 and 1814. Isabey taught him and his sister drawing when they were both children. When Isabey attended the Congress of Vienna in 1814-15 Eugène was his guide, introducing him to many of the most important dignitaries. Eugène is here wearing the ribbon, cross and Grand Eagle of the Legion of Honour. His splendid uniform, carefully groomed hair and piercing blue eyes perfectly convey the impression of a dashing military man of the Napoleonic era.
M249|1|1|The demand for portraits of Napoleon was so great that it could only be satisfied by many artists painting them. This is an independent work by Muneret and does not derive, as was once thought, from an original by Isabey.
M251|1|1|Six miniature copies after self-portraits of great Italian and Flemish artists are combined in one frame. When the copies were painted the originals were believed to represent Raphael, Andrea del Sarto, Titian, Annibale Carracci, Rubens and Van Dyck. Until recently, the miniatures were dated to the nineteenth century, a period with an almost obsessive interest in artists and their portraits. However, the miniatures are closely related to a series of 224 similar works documented as the work of Guiseppe Macpherson which entered the Royal Collection in 1773 and in 1786. The six portrait miniatures in the Wallace Collection all have exact counterparts in the larger series in Windsor.<br>While the series in the Royal Collection is remarkable for its scope, covering artists from the late fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries, the group of six in the Wallace Collection closely reflects artistic ideals of the time. Raphael, Andrea del Sarto, Titian and Annibale Carracci were at the time seen as the highest embodiments of the classical ideal in Italian art, Rubens and Van Dyck as the pinnacle of Flemish art and as the greatest colourists of the seventeenth century.<br>The series was perhaps acquired by the 3rd Marquess of Hertford and is first mentioned at Hertford House in 1834. Because of his close ties to the Prince of Wales, the future George IV, he was probably familiar with the series in the Royal Collection. The 3rd Marquess was too young, however, to have commissioned the miniatures himself from Macpherson.
M255|1|1|This work has been traditionally attributed to the Swedish artist Karl Gustav Klingstedt (1657-1734), who worked in Paris as a miniature painter from 1690. He specialised in gallant scenes of courtship. In the present painting, however, he took his subject from the History of Susanna in the Apocrypha. He depicts the moment when two Elders sprang out on the heroine while she bathed alone and unsuspecting in her garden.<br>The scene is depicted in a very limited range of colour, dominated by grey. This palette is particularly effective in emphasizing the old age of the Elders, and thus the inappropriateness of their behaviour towards the young and innocent Susanna. The naked heroine is depicted in pink flesh tones, which singles her out from the grey tints of the grisaille- the red accent is repeated again in the cap of the Elder. The gushing fountain, masonery and foliage of the garden setting are as minutely rendered as the three figures themselves.
M258|1|1|The topic of ‘The Hunt Breakfast’ was introduced into the mainstream of French painting by Watteau with his painting in the Wallace Collection of c. 1717-18 and by François Lemoyne’s celebrated canvas in São Paulo of 1723. Nicolas Lancret painted several examples of the subject which are particularly close to Lafrensen’s miniature. However these paintings were already in the collection of the Prussian King Frederick II in Potsdam when Lafrensen’s miniatures were painted. The link between Lafrensen and Lancret is Carle Van Loo’s large-scale ‘Hunt Breakfast’ which he painted as a young artist in 1737 for the Petits Apartements of Louis XV in Fontainebleau, under strong influence on Lancret’s renderings of the subject. Lafrensen took several elements directly from Van Loo – the central figure of a seated woman in yellow eating from a plate on her lap turning to a companion further on the left, the reclining huntsman in red, the standing servant, and also the overall spatial arrangement with a clump of trees behind the figures on the left, a wide view into the landscape sloping down on the right and a more distant group of figures further down that slope. Van Loo’s painting was in Fontainebleau until 1793 and thus easily accessible during Lafrensen’s Parisian years.<br>‘The Hunt Breakfast’ forms a pair with ‘The Walk in the Park’ (M257). The two roundels contrast the hunt with the more civilized nature of the park and also the two fashion styles associated with these different settings.
M260|1|1|Miniatures accorded perfectly with the eighteenth-century French love of the intimate, the gallant and the bijou, leading to an expansion of the type of subjects treated. Lafrensen specialized in exquisitely painted miniature gallant and erotic scenes like this vision of two semi-clad beauties chatting during their morning ablutions. The artist pays great attention to the fashionable paraphernalia of dress and interior, adding a frisson of voyeuristic excitement with the vision of the girl using a chamber pot. Expressly intended for the private delectation of the connoisseur, such images were often popularized to a wider audience through prints.
M262|1|1|The sitter, identified as Renée Baillet, the wife of Jean de Thou, seigneur de Bonneuil, wears a black bodice with a white lace frontlet and collar and a white ruff. It is the pendant to M263, the portrait of Jean de Thou. Like its pendant, the sitter is depicted in front of a blue background and a feigned surround of a wooden, bevelled frame.<br><br>Like M263, it is painted on oil on card, rather than the more usual watercolour on vellum. For a discussion of the attribution of this miniature, see the entry on M263.
M263|1|1|The inscription on the back of this miniature identifies the sitter as Jean de Thou (1537/8-1579). The inscription may be regarded as trustworthy since Jean de Thou, a lesser-known member of a noble family from the region of Orléans, would not have been used later to provide an interesting identity for an anonymous portrait.<br><br>Although not specifically mentioned in biographical accounts of the de Thou family, information on Jean de Thou can be found in a collection of poems published immediately after his death and in later annotated versions of the autobiography of his brother, the famous historian Jacques-Auguste de Thou (1553-1617). Son of Christophe de Thou (1508-1582), Jean de Thou held the offices of Conseiller au Parlement and Maître des requêtes and died in 1579 aged forty-one.<br><br>While the identification of the sitter can be considered reliable the attribution of the miniature is more difficult. It has traditionally been associated with the style of the Clouets. Jean Clouet and his son François are today credited with many masterworks of French sixteenth-century portraiture. Very little, however, is known about these two painters. Their dates and places of birth are still unknown and few signed works survive.<br><br>The portrait of Jean de Thou is based on a drawing attributed to an anonymous painter from the immediate circle of François Clouet, the so-called Anonyme Lécurieux. Like the drawing, the miniature is close in style to the few signed works by François Clouet but not enough to justify an attribution to him.
M266|1|1|The style of miniature probably derives from the work of Isabey.
M269|1|1|This is based on a late seventeenth-century portrait, but the identity of the sitter is unknown.
M273|1|1|The sitter in this miniature is unidentified.
M275|1|1|The sitter in this miniature is unidentified.
M276|1|1|The sitter in this miniature is unidentified. Her costume suggests that she was French and the flowers in her hair probably indicate that she was married.
M280|1|1|The original portrait by Winterhalter is now unlocated. A full-length miniature of Louis-Philippe by Meuret after Winterhalter, dated 1842, is in the Royal Collection (2655).
M281|1|1|Portraits of the duchesse de Berry, mother of the 'enfant de miracle' Prince Henri (the sole hope for the continuation of the Bourbon line after the murder of his father in 1820), were painted by such major artists as Gérard, Vigée Le Brun and Lawrence. She brought an enthusiastic and impulsive personality to what was often a dull and stuffy Bourbon court, and she was a notable collector of contemporary paintings. This miniature presents an unusually direct and engaging impression of one of the senior members of the Bourbon family. It was painted by Madame de Mirbel, nee Lizinka-Aimée-Zoé Rue, who was a very successful portrait miniaturist of the period.
M282|1|1|This is a second version of Mme de Mirbel (then Mlle Rue)'s portrait of Louis XVIII (now in a private collection), painted, unlike the first version, with the aid of sittings from the King, and exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1819. The composition recalls earlier portraits of the King by artists such as Isabey and Gros. She has only lightly improved the less attractive features of the plump and florid King, choosing even to include the grey hairs protruding through his dark and bushy eyebrows.
M283|1|1|The identification of the sitter is uncertain.
M285|1|1|Marie Leszczynska (1703-68) married King Louis XV of France in 1725 when he was fifteen. They had ten children together. This miniature is based on a portrait of the Queen, today in the Châteaux de Versailles, long thought to be by Jean-Baptiste van Loo but recently reattributed to François Stiémart. That portrait was painted around 1726 and was one of the earliest images of the new Queen. Marie wears a brocaded orange dress, while her page holds up her blue robe decorated with the royal fleurs de lys behind her. She points with her right hand to her crown, which is held by a winged putto on the left. There is another miniature of the Queen of France at the Wallace Collection (M119) as well as a painting (M437), both after a famous portrait by Jean-Marc Nattier.
M286|1|1|The back of the mount is inscribed 'Made Boulanger'. Nothing is known now of her.
M287|1|1|Isaac Oliver was the son of Huguenot parents from Rouen. His father, the goldsmith Pierre Olivier, had settled in England with his family by 1568. Isaac learned miniature painting with Nicholas Hilliard, a choice which reflected the close ties between goldsmiths and miniature painters at the time. Hilliard and Oliver became the two eminent miniature painters of the period. Oliver’s career was in the ascendant throughout and he became official miniature painter to Queen Anne of Denmark in 1605, and a member of the household of Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales, of whom he painted several brilliant portraits.<br><br>This miniature is typical of Oliver’s style. The sitter, Sir Richard Leveson (c.1570–1605), a naval officer during the Anglo-Spanish war (1585–1604), was knighted for his successes during the Cadiz expedition in 1596 and played an important role in 1601 fending off the Spanish attempts to land in Ireland. In 1604 Leveson was appointed Vice-Admiral of England by James I but died the following year. Around the time that Oliver painted the portrait, Leveson’s private life had changed dramatically. After his wife had become insane in 1602, he took up with a new partner, Mary Fitton, with whom he had a child in 1603.<br><br>Oliver’s portrait of Sir Richard Leveson exists in three versions, all of which seem to be autograph. The prime example, in a private collection, is identical in size to the version in the Wallace Collection but differs in some details, in particular in the rendering of Leveson’s dress.
M288|1|1|This is one of Quaglia's finest works. It shows Josephine four years after her divorce from Napoleon, but nevertheless she is shown wearing a sumptuous court dress in white and gold, while the rich red cloak and ermine further proclaim her exalted status, as do her magnificent jewels. As large pearls were more valuable than diamonds she has been painted with a fortune displayed on her imposing person. Her pose, more characteristic of an artist than a sitter of her social eminence, suggests thought or inspiration, perhaps in reference to her devotion to the arts.
M291|1|1|Rossi's miniature is apparently based on a whole-length portrait of the sitter (St. Petersburg, Hermitage) painted by the English artist George Dawe in 1821 when Nicholas was still Grand Duke. The future 4th Marquess of Hertford visited Moscow in 1825, and two years later his father, the 3rd Marquess, went to Russia on behalf of George IV to present Nicholas with the Order of the Garter. It is not known how this miniature (which has a frame of high quality rock crystals) entered the Hertfords' collections. But, because it depicts Nicholas before he became Tsar, it seems more likely that it was given to the future 4th Marquess by the sitter in 1825 than to the 3rd Marquess two years later, although the latter is not impossible. Although of Italian descent, Pietro de Rossi was born and died in St. Petersburg.
M292|1|1|The demand for portraits of Napoleon was so great that it could only be satisfied by many artists painting them. This miniature by Saint is characteristic of a type established by Jean-Baptiste Isabey, (cf. M8 and M229) Napoleon's principal portrait painter in miniature, that was also produced in large numbers by other artists. Saint was one of Isabey's principal pupils.
M293|1|1|This miniature has recently been identified - on the basis of a named version sold at auction in Paris in 1906 - as a portrait of Madame Gid (dates unknown), 'première chanteuse' in the Chapel of Charles X.
M294|1|1|Louis was a younger brother of Napoleon. He married Napoleon's step-daughter Hortense de Beauharnais in 1802, and four years later was made King of Holland by Napoleon, though his reign was cut short in 1810 when Napoleon forced him to abdicate because of his pro-Dutch policies. In Saint's miniature Louis wears the white uniform of a colonel of the Dutch cavalry. The composition recalls the full-length portrait of Louis by the English-born painter Charles Howard Hodges of 1809 (Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum; SKA-A-653).
M295|1|1|Besides painting many portraits of Napoleon, Isabey and his studio, of which Saint was a member, also produced many portraits of Napoleon's extensive family. There are numerous versions of this miniature.
M303|1|1|Sicardi’s ‘Head of a Woman’ is a good example of the long-lasting fashion for female study heads, often with strongly emotional expressions and in different stages of erotic undress. The phenomenon originated in paintings by Jean-Baptiste Greuze in the 1760s and after a certain delay reached miniature painting, in works by Sicardi, Hall and others. An earlier example by Sicardi, signed and dated 1780, is also in the Wallace Collection (M301). Sicardi himself owned a painting by Greuze if ‘Une Jeune fille. Le sign découvert [A young woman with her breast exposed]’. The ‘Head of a Woman’ in a Chequered Shawl and Turban demonstrates that the fashion for Greuze’s expressive heads continued without significant interruption during the Revolution and after.<br>The shawl and turban of the woman have long been assumed to be in a tartan pattern. Aileen Ribeiro, however, has recently pointed out that this type of chequer pattern was highly fashionable in Paris in the late 1790s and does not refer to Scottish dress. While the date of the signature could also be read as ‘1789’, Ribeiro’s observation confirms the traditional dating to 1799.<br>A reference to another version illustrated by Lespinasse in 1929 is based on an error. However, an unsigned version in a private collection might be autograph.
M304|1|1|The miniature is inspired by Greuze's depictions of a single female subject in the guise of a bacchante. A label formerly with the miniature is inscribed in ink 'Ecrin miniature/Portrait Mme. Cail en Bacchante/ par Sicardi.' The miniature was attributed to Marie-Louis Sicardi (1746-1825) at the Allègre sale of 1872 (Paris) where it was acquired by Sir Richard Wallace for 1,500 francs.
M305|1|1|The identification of the sitter as Mlle Adèle derives from the catalogue of the sale in 1870 at which this miniature was bought by the 4th Marquess of Hertford. She was almost certainly an actress - this is suggested by her semi-classical dress and the omission of her surname in the catalogue entry - but in the present state of knowledge it is not possible to identify her.<br><br>The 4th Marquess of Hertford acquired this miniature in 1870 at the sale of the Russian collector Anatole Demidoff. Lord Hertford retained the distinctive Demidoff livery frame, as he did with the large canvases he acquired at the sale.
M306|1|1|The sitter in this miniature is unidentified.
M307|1|1|The identity of the sitter is not known, although it appears that he was identified as Admiral Blake (1599-1657) in the nineteenth century. He wears a grey doublet with a white cravat tied with a red bow, of the type fashionable in c. 1665-1675. The portrait miniature has been attributed to Pieter Cornelisz van Slingelandt (1640-1691), a pupil of Gerrit Dou who painted a small number of miniatures in oil.
M309|1|1|This is derived from a famous portrait of Mme Récamier by François Gérard (1802) now in the Musée Carnavalet, Paris. The wife of a rich banker, Mme Récamier was renowned for her beauty.Soiron was a painter from Geneva who worked mainly in enamel. Enamel miniatures are very frequently reproductive works.
M310|1|1|The Venetian Painter Rosalba Carriera was one of the crucial figures in early eighteenth-century painting, both for the quality of her works and for her introduction of pastel painting and miniature painting in ivory into the mainstream of European art. She is recorded as a pastellist from 1704 onwards but in the first decade of the eighteenth-century was mainly active as a miniature painter. Later in her career, miniatures seem to have become less frequent; new miniatures are mentioned in her diary in 1726 and 1727 but seem to have become exceedingly rare afterwards.<br>This female portrait is a good example of Carriera’s work as a miniature painter. It shows her outstanding ability to endow her sitters with a fashionable elegance using a harmony of pale colours and an unequalled lightness of touch. Doubts about the attribution and state of preservation of the miniature have been voiced, without obvious reason. While the work has been linked to an engraving from 1778 by Francesco Bartolozzi after a self-portrait, a comparison of the sitter with documented self-portraits of Carriera show no particular resemblance. The sitter of the miniature must thus remain anonymous.<br>Her dress is Northern Italian in style and can be dated to the second decade of the eighteenth century. As it was not unusual for tourists to sit for portraits in local clothing, we cannot be certain the sitter was Italian.
M311|1|1|This enamel miniature by Jacques Thouron derives from Louis Vigée Le Brun’s famous self-portrait in a straw hat, now in a private collection. It is framed in an original Louis XVI tondo frame.<br>Le Brun’s self portrait of 1782 was a witty homage to Rubens’s portrait of Susanna Lunden (known traditionally as Chapeau de Paille) and was so well received at the Paris salon of 1783 that it led to her being proposed for membership of the Académie Royale. The self-portrait of the artist standing outdoors in simple dress with flowers in her hat, has the quality of simplicity and informality so characteristic of her portraiture. Such qualities of vivacity and spontaneity appealed to the 4th Marquess of Hertford, who acquired two of her portraits (P449 and P457) in the 1860s, and a miniature reproduction by Henry Bone of her portrait of Emma Hamilton as a bacchante (M21).
M312|1|1|Marie-Louise, daughter of Francis I of Austria, marrid Napoleon in 1810 as his second wife after his divorce from Joséphine. Napoleon hoped that Marie-Louise would be able to bear him the son that Joséphine had been unable to provide. This she duly did in March 1811, with the birth of a son who was immediately given the title King of Rome. Proclaimed Napoleon II in 1815, but never able to rule, he spent most of his short life at the castle of Schönbrunn, just outside Vienna.
M313|1|1|The decorative surround is signed, bottom right: 'E.V. Leduc'. This is therefore a joint work by Vernet and the architect Eugène Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc (1814-1879).Vernet was one of the favourite artists of the 4th Marquess of Hertford, and his paintings are very well represented in the Wallace Collection.
M314|1|1|Christian Frederick Zincke was born in Dresden and came to London in 1706. He trained with Charles Boît (1662-1727) a leading enamel painter. Zincke’s portrait miniatures are celebrated for their high finish and exquisite colours, yet are repetitive in their poses and show little individuality in the sitters.<br>Henry Seymour Conway (1719-1795), was the younger brother of the 1st Marquess of Hertford. When the miniature was painted he was in his early twenties and at the beginning of a long career which made him the most prominent member of the family in the eighteenth-century. His military career began in 1737 and in 1741 he was elected Member of Parliament. As an officer he took part in the War of the Austrian Succession, the battle of Culloden and the Seven Years War. In 1755 he became Chief Secretary for Ireland, beginning the high-profile career which he was to pursue in tandem with his service in the army until 1784. Its pinnacle was in 1765 when he was nominated Secretary of State in the Rockingham administration.<br>Around the time the miniature was painted, Seymour Conway was pursuing a relationship with Lady Caroline Fitzroy, who may have been the intended recipient of the miniature. The expensive frame, set with diamonds, rubies and emeralds, suggests an important recipient. It could also have been intended for his future wife, Caroline Bruce, Countess of Ailesbury, whom he married in 1747. Both theories would explain why the miniature remained within the Seymour Conway family.
M320|1|1|This is a cutting from an illuminated manuscript of the late Roman consul Boethius’s celebrated work On the Consolations of Philosophy. The frontispiece to Book II, the illustration shows Boethius in a pink robe listening to instruction from the female figure of Philosophy. To the right Fortune turns a wheel on which are four figures, including a king with a crown. This miniature and another in the Wallace Collection, the frontispiece to Book III, are attributed to the Maître de Coëtivy, named after a Book of Hours made for Oliver de Coëtivy and his wife, Marie Marguerite de Valois, 1458–73 (Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek).
M322|1|1|This is a cutting from an illuminated manuscript – the first letter of a text which is now lost. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries illuminated medieval manuscripts were frequently cut up and their illuminations framed or stuck into albums. This illumination was painted in Lombardy, northern Italy, probably c.1480. St Apollonia of Alexandria (died 249) was a virgin martyr who refused to sacrifice to pagan gods. She is said to have had her teeth pulled out before being burned at the stake. In the illumination she is shown holding a pair of pincers in which is a tooth, the symbol of her martyrdom. In her right hand she holds an orange book bag.
P467|1|1|Copied with P468 from two Bouchers of 1743 (New York, private collection), and attributed to Charlier in the nineteenth century, although their handling is somewhat different from his usual style.
P468|1|1|Copied with P467 from two Bouchers of 1743 (New York, private collection), and attributed to Charlier in the nineteenth century, although their handling is somewhat different from his usual style.
P758|1|1|The miniature is a portrait of the German Emperor Franz I Stephan (1708-1765; Emperor from 1745), his wife Maria Theresia, Queen of Hungary and Bohemia (1717-1780), and thirteen of their children, with the main entrance to Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna in the background.<br>The miniature is based on a group portrait of the imperial family which the Swedish painter Martin van Meytens painted in several variations between 1752 and 1756. Four versions of Meyten’s portrait are known, all of which are based on the same design. The groups of the Emperor, the Empress and their eldest children on both sides are identical, whereas the group of the younger children was changed and adapted according to the actual number of children of the imperial family at the respective times.<br>The date of the miniature, given on the back of the Emperor’s throne, accords with the number of children who were alive at the time but not necessarily with their ages. The youngest children would have been visibly older by 1760 which indicates that the miniature was based on already existing material.<br>Nothing is known about the provenance of the miniature. A long inscription on the back, probably in the hand of Sir Richard Wallace, identifies the sitters and (wrongly) identifies the painter as ‘F.P. Mignarde’, probably because of Pierre Mignard’s (1612-1695) much earlier multi-figures portraits of the French Royal Family. The miniature must have been acquired primarily for its historical importance as one of the early portraits of the future Marie-Antoinette.
W7|1|1|During the Medieval period the city of Limoges was the one of the most important centres in Western Europe for the large-scale production of metalwork in copper. Objects were cast in moulds, then chased, engraved and sometimes enamelled. Limoges copper-gilt metalwork was widely exported throughout Europe. This relief, which is notable for the exceptionally elaborate chasing of the garments of the six figures, was probably originally attached either to the front of an altar or, possibly, to the side of a reliquary casket or chasse (reliquary or shrine).
W25|1|1|This pair of pattens reflects the 15th century fashion for long, pointed footwear inspired by the aesthetic of Gothic architecture. As early as the 1370s, poulaines (shoes with a long sharp point at the end) became popular for both men and woman. Pattens, such as these, were made to be worn as overshoes to protect the wearer’s poulaines from the mud and snow, by raising the shoes off the ground.
W31|1|1|Horns were used to signal at the chase and in battle and could be richly decorated if they had religious associations or were owned by a wealthy individual. This horn was regarded as an important relic of St Hubert (about 656–727) and was once embellished with painted decoration, silver and gold. It was reputedly being used by the saint while hunting, when he experienced a vision of a stag with a crucifix between its antlers.<br><br>In 1468 the relic was given by the Bishop of Liège to Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy. It had been preserved at Liège among the relics of St Hubert, who had been the bishop of that town. A chapel dedicated to St Hubert was built to house the horn at Chauvirey-le-Châtel (Haute Saône), in France. In 1869, the horn, together with the chapel and castle of Chauvirey, passed to the comte de Scey, who sold the horn to Sir Richard Wallace ten years later.
W34|1|1|This diptych consists of a pair of arched gold panels decorated on both sides with base-taille enamelling. The panels feature Pierre II duc de Bourbon with St Peter and Anne de France with St Anne, and, on the reverse, Charlemagne and Louis IX. They probably made up the outer wings of a triptych that, when open, would have surrounded a now lost centrepiece. The plaques were remounted at a later date.<br><br>The images of Pierre II and Anne with the accompanying patron saints are closely related to very similar groups on the inner shutters of the Moulins Triptych in Moulins Cathedral, painted by Jean Hey c. 1498.<br><br>Portable objects of devotion from Renaissance France are rare, although they are often recorded in inventories of the period. The 20,000 fr paid for W34 at the Allègre sale in 1872 was then an auction record for a renaissance jewel.
W37|1|1|Ewers and basins were very common domestic objects during the Renaissance and would have been found in every well-to-do household. Whilst undecorated sets in plainer materials were made for daily use, grander sets such as this were generally made for ceremonial purposes and would not necessarily have been used. The basin bears a pair of coat-of-arms, one of which has been identified as that of the Ciacchi family of Florence, suggesting that this set was made as a gift for a marriage involving a member of this family. The ewer and basin are characteristic examples of Venetian enamelled copper work from the period around 1500. The gadrooning in the lower section of the ewer and on the dish also occurs in Venetian glass of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries and is derived from contemporary metalwork.
W38|1|1|Ewers and basins were very common domestic objects during the Renaissance and would have been found in every well-to-do household. Whilst undecorated sets in plainer materials were made for daily use, grander sets such as this were generally made for ceremonial purposes and would not necessarily have been used. The basin bears a pair of coat-of-arms, one of which has been identified as that of the Ciacchi family of Florence, suggesting that this set was made as a gift for a marriage involving a member of this family. The ewer and basin are characteristic examples of Venetian enamelled copper work from the period around 1500. The gadrooning in the lower section of the ewer and on the dish also occurs in Venetian glass of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries and is derived from contemporary metalwork.
W64|1|1|The body of the soldier is made from two large Baroque pearls, and the legs, arms, head and armour from silver, partly gilded. The use of pearls to create the body of the figure is notably successful in this brilliant and fluid figure in the full Mannerist style. Although it has sometimes been suggested that it might be later in date, it appears to be a work of the sixteenth century and, as such, one of the earliest Baroque pearl figures, the fashion for such small sculptures reaching its height in the later seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.
W82|1|1|Sets comprising a matching ewer and basin in which to wash your hands or face were familiar objects in households throughout Europe. This magnificent basin, made from gilded silver, could in theory be put to practical use but, in reality, it is highly unlikely that it would ever have served any purpose other than display, for example on a buffet in a ceremonial space.<br><br>It is difficult at first to take in all the extraordinary embossed decoration which covers virtually every part of the surfaces of this basin. This over-abundant decoration is typical of the style known as Mannerism, popular throughout Western Europe c. 1520-1600. Forming a bridge between early Renaissance art and the 17th-century Baroque period, Mannerism saw artists moving away from the serene balance and order of the earlier Renaissance, instead placing greater value on movement, as well as the virtuosity of the artist. Certainly the goldsmith who made this object was making a strong claim for his virtuosity.<br><br>The decoration of the basin forms an allegorical presentation of the cosmos. In the outer field are figures in chariots representing the then known planets, interspersed with Biblical and Classical heroes and heroines. In the well are four large cartouches with allegorical representations of the four Elements (water, earth, air and fire) together with figures denoting branches of learning; finally, around the boss are the four Seasons.<br><br>The planet gods are based on engravings made in 1563 by the German artist Nicolaus Wilborn, but this does not necessarily mean that the basin is German. In fact, around 1570 Mannerist style was so international that it is very difficult to attribute the piece to a particular school; especially because it is not hallmarked.<br><br>It has sometimes been thought that the basin and a matching silver ewer (W53; although they probably come from different sets), were made in Portugal around 1560-80. When the pieces were lent to an exhibition by Sir Richard Wallace in 1881, they were said to have come from the collection of the counts of Anadia in Lisbon, but this has never been confirmed and may have been a dealer’s invention. Wallace might have been tricked by a dealer as the coat of arms of Pope Pius IV in the centre of the basin is not original and was probably added to increase the value of the dish.<br><br>Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild, another great nineteenth-century collector, was shown the basin and ewer by his uncle, who intended to buy them but changed his mind. Ferdinand noted in his memoir on collecting: '[...] on my next visit to Sir Richard Wallace [I] saw the plate in one of his glass cases. Could I have foreseen my Uncle's decision I should certainly have endeavoured to secure it for my Father or myself.
W102|1|1|This majestic-looking ostrich statuette was made by the Augsburg silversmith Elias Zorer (master c. 1586–died 1625). The South German city of Augsburg was a leading centre of goldsmithing in Europe, renowned for the high quality silver objects produced there.<br><br>All sorts of human and animal figures were made in the city, especially in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Zorer is known for a few more figures, including a standing cup in the form of a stag in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford and a standing cup in the form of peasant woman in the British Museum, London. They are characterised by realistic details and fine chasing, evident here in the treatment of the feathers.<br><br>Such statuettes were used not only as decorative objects, for example, table ornaments, but often also as extravagant drinking vessels. The neck of this statue was originally detachable, suggesting that it may have been used as a cup, and it was only pinned at a later date. The ostrich was a relatively popular motif for small-scale silver sculptures and more examples have survived in various collections. Sometimes the body was made of an actual ostrich egg to which silver mounts were attached, making it a desirable item for cabinets of curiosities, collections of rare, exotic and ingenious objects.<br><br>The Europeans were fascinated by the ostrich, seen as an exotic curiosity, due to its enormous size and inability to fly. It received many different meanings and stood for vices and virtues alike, from voraciousness, as it was believed that ostriches could swallow anything, to justice. The latter symbolism was employed by Raphael (1483-1520) who painted an ostrich as an attribute of Justice in the Sala di Costantino in the Vatican. Interestingly, he was inspired by ancient Egyptian beliefs, according to which the soul’s passage to the underworld was determined by weighing the heart of the dead against an ostrich feather.<br><br>The Roman author Pliny the Elder (23-79 AD) in his Natural History incorrectly wrote about the ostrich that it can digest anything. This was possibly the source of a popular myth that it can digest metal, and the reason why the bird is commonly depicted holding a horseshoe in its beak. Today, horseshoes are seen as a symbol of good luck. For Sir Richard Wallace the statue had an additional meaning. He acquired it in 1872, the year after Queen Victoria had made him a baronet in recognition of his charitable work during the Siege of Paris and the Commune. The coat of arms which he was granted included an ostrich’s head with a horseshoe.<br><br>The base of the statue features engraved coats of arms, recently identified as having beloned to leading families of the Swiss Canton of Uri. They were members of the Society of the Ostrich in Altdorf, who commissioned the statuette in 1599. This was probably a shooting brotherhood consisting of prominent citizens. The society's symbol was an ostrich with a horseshoe.
W111|1|1|Rock crystal is a transparent colourless quartz which, although very hard, has from ancient times been carved into decorative and useful objects. This bowl was probably made in northern India in the seventeenth century, probably in the Mughal lands. The Mughals, the Muslim rulers of India, had a long and outstanding artistic tradition, particularly in architecture, textiles and metalwork as well as carving in precious materials such as jade and rock crystal. The decoration of this bowl is deliberately restrained in order to demonstrate the purity of the rock crystal.
W112|1|1|The Qianlong Emperor used the Gold Cup of Eternal Stability to drink tusu wine, a special herbal drink, to celebrate the Chinese New Year and assure stability of the country. The cup is decorated with kingfisher feathers which were cut and glued directly onto the gold surface. This ancient technique of decorating objects is called tian-tsui, which means ‘dotting with kingfishers’.<br><br>Wallace bought this cup and the similar one in the collection (W113) at an auction in Paris in 1872. In the sale catalogue they are described as coming from the Summer Palace – the residence of the Chinese emperors that was looted and destroyed by Anglo-French troops in 1860, during the Second Opium War.
W113|1|1|This wine cup, together with a similar one in the collection (W112), was made for the Qianlong Emperor. The Gold Cup of Eternal Stability was used by the emperor to celebrate the Chinese New Year during the First Stroke Ceremony which took place in the Forbidden City, Beijing.<br><br>This cup might be the prototype, made in the fourth year of Qianlong’s reign. The model was adjusted according to the emperor's wishes and two new cups were produced the following year. One of these is the second cup in the Wallace Collection. Only four cups were made: the other two are in the palace museums in Beijing and Taipei.<br><br>Wallace bought the two cups at an auction in Paris in 1872. In the sale catalogue they are described as coming from the Summer Palace – the residence of the Chinese emperors that was looted and destroyed by Anglo-French troops in 1860, during the Second Opium War.
W163|1|1|In the Netherlands in the seventeenth century baby-linen baskets were traditionally presented to expectant parents by the father’s mother shortly before the birth of a child. This example bears the marks of the town of Deventer and the silversmith Lucas Luiksen (Lucassen). The relief in the centre derives from a design by the celebrated Utrecht goldsmith Paulus van Vianen (1570-1613). Its subject, the fleeing Daphne being turned into a laurel tree to escape the attentions of Apollo, seems however to be a strange choice for a baby-linen basket, and perhaps the object is simply a salver.
W172|1|1|The spectacular emerald on the top of this box was possibly carved at the court of the Mughal Emperors in northern India. The metalwork is crude but the precious stones and colourful enamel decoration must have appealed to Wallace’s taste.
W173|1|1|A cultured eighteenth-century gentleman would be knowledgeable about the arts and sciences. Many would be enthusiastic scientific observers and carry scientific instruments, such as this combined compass and sundial, in their capacious pockets. Although not signed, this instrument has been attributed to the English maker Michael Butterfield (1635-1724) who worked in Paris, having moved there c.1663. He produced many pocket compasses and sundials of this kind and gave his name to (though he did not invent) this particular type with its dial plate engraved with different hour scales serving different latitudes, its compass and its adjustable gnomon (the column of the sundial that indicates the time).
W198|1|1|The rock crystal used for this set is exceptionally clear. The set, especially the hollow form of the ewer, would have taken great skill to make. The gold mounts of the ewer include a handle in the form of a young Triton wrestling with a snake-like sea monster, and a knob on the cover in the shape of a barking dog.<br>Three examples are known (only two survive with their basins) and they have an important provenance: the Wallace Collection’s set belonged to Madame de Pompadour, the one in the Louvre to the duchesse de Mazarin and later to Marie-Antoinette, and the ewer in a private collection is possibly that recorded in the collection of Madame du Barry.<br>The knob and the handle of our set are stylistically incoherent and, indeed, a marchand-mercier (art dealer) Lazare Duvaux noted in 1758 repairs done to Madame de Pompadour’s rock crystal ewer: the removal of mounts and the additions of a gold handle from a different ewer, a lid and the gold circle for the foot. The mount of the edge of the lid bears the mark of Jean Gaillard and the traces of a year mark, probably that of 1731–32.
W201|1|1|An item of sumptuous delicacy and luxury, this little notebook comprises a small almanac or diary within two eighteenth-century polychrome lacquer panels. The interior is lined with cream moiré silk and contains two ivory tablets inscribed with the days of the week in French, and four folded paper pages in cream moiré silk folders. A gold pencil slots into holes on the side, keeping it shut.<br>The lacquer is an example of the high level of skills achieved by Parisian craftsmen in the eighteenth century who sought to copy Oriental work while imparting a European feel to their production. Known as chinoiseries, the decoration of these panels shows, on the front, a man hunting watched by a lady, and a lady looking into a river on the reverse. These are just the kind of scenes that the Martin brothers specialised in, their work described in a monopoly granted to them in 1744 as being ‘all sorts of work in relief and in the Chinese and Japanese taste’. The business of the Martin brothers was clearly a success, since by 1748 the Manufacture Royale de MM Martin had three branches in Paris.
W207|1|1|This inkstand, with accompanying pots, bell and sand sifter, was made in Naples in a technique known as piqué work. Involving inlaying tortoiseshell with gold or silver, it was first developed in Naples at the end of the sixteenth century, but was also later adopted in Paris and London, although Naples long remained the centre of its production. This inkstand is signed (‘Sarao Fecit Neapoli’) by Sarao, one of the leading craftsmen in the technique who worked for Carlo III of Naples and his wife Maria Amalia. Notable collections of piqué work were assembled in the nineteenth century by the Rothschild family.
W210|1|1|The knotting shuttle, unlike the snuffbox which was used by both gentlemen and laidies, was a particularly feminine accessory. The initials on this one are those of Marie-Louise-Therèse-Victoire (1733-1799), the seventh child of Louis XV and Queen Marie Leszczyńska, and there is no reason to doubt that she was the original owner.<br>Rather than being made by a goldsmith, this shuttle would have been supplied to a luxury goods retailer by a fourbisseur (furbisher), who would have made mounts for items like swords as well as snuffboxes. While the quality of the piercing and chasing is comparable to any piece of goldsmiths’ work in eighteenth-century Paris, this oval steel shuttle with its damascened gold decoration did not pass through a goldsmith’s workshop.<br>Knotting was a method of creating a braid by knotting the silk thread at close intervals till a cord was formed which could then be added to a dress or upholstery. First the thread was wound onto the central column of the shuttle, which was then unwound as and when the thread was needed. Knotting shuttles were often made of expensive materials, such as tortoiseshell, mother of pearl as well as silver and gold and as such they were often given as gifts.
W221|1|1|Knotting was a past time for genteel ladies in the 18th century. It is a method of creating a braid by knotting the silk thread at close intervals till a cord was formed which could then be added to a dress or upholstery. First the thread was wound onto the central column of the shuttle, which was then unwound as and when the thread was needed. Knotting shuttles were often made of expensive materials, such as turtleshell, mother of pearl, silver and gold. They were often given as gifts.<br>This shuttle is made of varicoloured gold, comprising two oval panels held together with a central oval column. The panels are pierced with irregular square basketwork, bordered by a continuous band of bright-cut engraving, which encloses a band of green gold ivy leaves on a matted gold ground. In the centre is an oval reserve, depicting foliage and flowers in green, white and red gold.
W223|1|1|Shuttles, unlike snuffboxes which were used by both gentlemen and ladies, were particularly feminine accessories used for knotting. Knotting was an acceptable past-time for society ladies, and involved knotting thread at close intervals in order to make a narrow trimming that was then couched in patterns onto another fabric. The thread was wound onto a shuttle such as this one, although this exquisite example must have been owned by an extremely affluent woman. Shuttles like this were designed to be taken to pieces in order to retrieve the thread more easily. The garnets here provide the heads of screws that can be released to remove the thread from the shank of the shuttle.
W225|1|1|Toilet services were an integral part of the levée (French) or lever (German), the elaborate morning ritual at which wealthy members of society received favoured guests. The German city of Augsburg became the leading centre of their production in the eighteenth century. Although the original owner of this service is unknown, it is one of the finest to survive, decorated in the full-blown German 'rokoko' style. It contains fifty five pieces for both the toilet and the breakfast meal, but would have had some additional porcelain items now missing. Among the toilet items are the mirror, candlesticks and snuffers as well as various boxes and bottles. The breakfast items include coffee and tea pots, a hot-milk jug and an individual setting with knife, fork and spoon.
W293|1|1|A varicoloured gold shuttle comprising two plaques with pierced borders, the outer rim bright-cut engraved with a border enclosing swags of green gold, with red gold shells enclosed by green gold foliage. Oval medallions of chased gold depict bagpipes, and a quiver of arrows with a torch, set against an enamelled marbled background. The centre of the top plaque is decorated with an enamel painting of a boy and girl with a birdcage, perhaps derived from a painting by François Boucher, but no exact model has been found. On the bottom plaque, a similar medallion depicts a girl with a dancing dog being watched by two boys.<br>As with the other shuttles, the top and bottom can be gently pulled apart to ease the thread wound round the shank.
W296|1|1|Spyglasses of this type were not especially efficient for viewing objects or people at a distance, but were used more as an indication that someone or something was being looked at. In eighteenth-century France such pieces were described as a lorgnette.<br>Parisian enamelled gold spyglasses are extremely rare. The marks on this one suggest that it was imported into Paris, and that Pierre-Robert Dezarot merely sent it for assay. Given the style of decoration it was perhaps imported from London, or possibly Hanau. The enamel decoration is not particularly French in style, although it is in the French ‘taste’. The palette of translucent blue and opaque white enamel is certainly found on goldsmiths’ work from London, and the engine turning could be attributable to either London or Hanau.
W303|1|1|Beautifully mounted in varicoloured gold – red, green and yellow – this almanac comprises two piqué panels framed and mounted with a double-hinged gold spine. A gold propelling pencil passes through six hoops of gold along the open edge, forming at the same time a secure closing mechanism and a pencil holder. Inside are a printed calendar and several pages for notes. It would have formed a supremely elegant accessory, slim and light enough for slipping into a gentleman’s pocket.<br>Like other goldsmiths of the Restoration period, Gabriel-Raoul Morel appears to have specialised in remounting earlier pieces. It would seem probable that the turtleshell panels here date from the late eighteenth century and that Morel re-used them for this almanac. The piqué decoration comprises a trophy surmounted by two birds, a flaming heart and a wreath, bordered by strapwork, gold and foliage. The marks on the goldsmith’s work indicate that it cannot have been made before 1819, nor after 1832, the year in which Morel ceased working, and the inclusion of a calendar inside of 1822 suggests the probable date of manufacture.<br>
W309|1|1|This richly decorated cup was conceived as a horse racing trophy. It is an eclectic assemblage of various jewels and elements. For example, the foot carved in stone might be the bowl from an older tazza (a type of footed vessel), whereas the finial is a pendant (a piece of jewellery) showing St George killing the Dragon. Its function as a horse racing trophy is indicated by horses' heads under the cup. Beneath them, there are four enslaved Black figures whose hands and feet are chained. Although slavery was officially abolished in the French colonies in 1848, racist imagery was still prevalent in the nineteenth century. Enslaved or ‘blackamoor’ figures, as they were often referred to, were historically shown as supports for architectural structures, garden fountains, furniture, and other forms of decorative arts.<br><br>This cup was one of several racing trophies won by Lord Henry Seymour (1805–1859). The son of the 3rd Marchioness by (probably) comte Casimir de Montrond, Lord Henry was the half-brother of the 4th Marquess of Hertford. He led a privileged and fashionable life in Paris and collected works of art. Passionate about horses, he was one of the founders of the French Jockey Club and its first president. Established in 1833 as the ‘Society for the Encouragement of the Improvement of Horse Breeding in France’, the French Jockey Club became an exclusive gentlemen's club. In his will, he included substantial bequests for four of his favourite horses, which were never to be ridden again.
W318|1|1|This extendable spyglass would not have offered particularly good visibility but would have been a fashionable accoutrement for an opera- or theatre-goer, or maybe just for using to survey one’s fellow guests at a party. The four-colour gold wreath around the lens is decorated with the British patriotic emblems of the rose, thistle and shamrock, suggesting a date of manufacture following the Acts of Union of England, Scotland and Ireland in 1800. However, the very bold treatment of the floral decoration is more in keeping with the decorative style of around 1820.<br>There are no visible hallmarks, but it is made from 19 carat gold. One clue to its origin is the engraved name, ‘Love, Old Bond Street’. It was evidently retailed by Christopher Love of Love & Co., 6 Old Bond Street, a jeweller and goldsmith operating from that address until at least 1825.
W331|1|1|This gold eagle is a link from a collar of the Order of the Crown of Westphalia (1809-13). It bears the mark of the goldsmith Biennais.<br>After the Treaty of Tilsit (1807) Napoleon formed the Kingdom of Westphalia by uniting several states and principalities. He made his youngest brother Jerome king of Westphalia. Jerome was granted permission to establish his own order, the order of the Crown of Westphalia, in 1809. Biennais, goldsmith to Napoleon, made designs for the order's insignias but none is extant. A collar from the Order of Westphalia is at the Musée Napoléon at Château de Fontainebleau, its date, however, is debated. It is made up of 22 arabesques, alternating with medallions showing heraldic beasts and eagles. As no written descriptions of the original collars survive, it is unclear if this is the original layout of them.<br>The links represent the lion of Hesse, the horse of Westphalia, the lion of Brunswick and the eagle of Magdeburg back to back. These alternate with imperial eagles of exactly the same design as the Wallace Collection eagle.<br>The kingdom of Westphalia ceased to exist in 1813 after the defeat of Napoleon in Russia, and that also meant the end of the Order.