A FRENCH GOLD AND ENAMEL BOÎTE-À-MINIATURE

GOLD BOXES FROM THE COLLECTION OF ARCHCHANCELLOR CAMBACÉRÈS The following fifteen gold boxes were acquired by the family of the present owner from a great-nephew of Jean-Jacques de Cambacérès (Montpellier 1753 - Paris 1824). A jurist, Cambacérès held the position of a Conseiller à la cour des comptes of Montpellier, in 1771, and of the Président du tribunal criminel of the Hérault department in 1789. Under the French Revolution, he was elected a deputy at the Convention in 1792, and as such favourable to the execution of King Louis XVI. His legal projects of 1793 were fundamental for the Code Civil. A member of the Conseil des Cinq-Cents, he was chosen by Abbé Sieyès - on Napoléon's request - to be the Second Consul, next to Lebrun and the future Emperor. In 1804, Napoléon styled him Archchancelor of the Empire and Duke of Parma. After the return of the Bourbons in 1815, Cambacérès had to leave France but was authorised to return from exile three years later. Cambacérès, a notorious bachelor, had a preference for subjects à l'antique, and his importance for the history of free-masonry should not be neglected. These two characteristics are perfectly reflected in his collection of gold boxes which also witnesses the change of taste in the applied arts in France from the Louis XVI style to Neoclassicism and Empire.

Details

A FRENCH GOLD AND ENAMEL BOÎTE-À-MINIATURE
by Joseph-Étienne Blerzy, Paris, circa 1798, the miniature signed by Parant, the flange engraved "Foncier Malide Et Cousin a Paris".

Oblong oval box, the cover inset with a glazed miniature in the style of the Antiquity depicting a warrior holding a hexagonal shield sculpted with a cockerell, taking farewell from a lady, an attendant with two horses and a chariot standing on the right, the scene painted in sepia against a Pompeian red background; within a frame of gold scrolls and foliage on a translucent blue enamelled ground bordered by opaque white enamel bands; the sides and base with similar borders containing matted gold panels -- 103 mm wide, the miniature with humidity damage.

Lot Essay

According to Serge Grandjean (Les tabatières du musée du Louvre, Paris, 1981, pp. 231-232), the Parisian jewellers and goldsmiths Edme-Marie Foncier, Malide and Cousin were associated in 1802/1803 and established at 127, rue Saint-Honoré. Foncier later was associated with Bernard-Armand Marguerite, Napoléon's Crown Jeweller, and leaving finally Malide and Marguerite as his successors.
The miniaturist Louis-Bertin Parant (1768-1851) was specialised in portraits and scenes in the antique taste imitating cameos. For similar works by him, see Serge Grandjean, op. cit, nrs 292, 296, 325 and 373. Parant also worked for the Sèvres porcelain factory and executed numerous portraits of Empresses Joséphine and Marie-Louise, and of Queen Hortense, for Emperor Napoléon.

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