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Lot Essay
According to the sales ledgers of the Sèvres porcelain factory, plaques for boxes and porcelain boxes themselves were only sold to the marchand-mercier, Lazare Duvaux until his death in 1758. After this date, Madame Duvaux continued buying but the goldsmiths, Jean Ducrollay and Jean George both also bought plaques for boxes. Given the dates of the gold mounts, it seems likely that the plaques were bought by Duvaux but, in any case, Ducrollay supplied boxes to him and bought materials from him. The usual price of a Sèvres 'tabatière verd enfans' or a 'tabatière enfans coloré' was 360 livres. Indeed Madame Duvaux bought four of these between July 1757 and 1st January 1758, and another in December 1758. Given the two date letters on the present box, it is very tempting to suggest that this box is the one bought by the duc de Rohan of Lazare Duvaux on 22 October 1757: 'une tabatière ovale de porcelaine de France à cartouches en vert, peinte à figures -1,200 livres'. On 3 December 1761, Ducrollay bought '1 plaque de tabatière verd enfans - 84 livres' from Sèvres on behalf of M. de Rohan, presumably to replace a broken plaque. If the box had been mounted by Ducrollay for Duvaux, it would be natural for the duc to send it back to the goldsmith for repair. This would explain the slight variation in the green of the top and bottom plaques. It is also possible that at the time of the repair, the goldsmith relined the top and base with gold panels marked two years earlier.