.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
This box belongs to a select group of Russian steel objects produced in Tula, well known as a manufacturing center for arms and armor. The Tula armorers developed a distinctive technique of combining blued steel with gilding, used to decorate hunting weapons and small luxury objects such as vases, andirons, and snuffboxes. Catherine the Great frequently presented products of the Tula armorers to foreigners, and the present snuffbox, with its Tula work panels mounted in gold, would have been an appropriate Imperial gift. A closely related snuffbox, mounted en cage with carved and gilt steel panels with military themes, is in the Louvre Museum (illustrated in Serge Grandjean, Les tabatières du Musée du Louvre, 1981, pp. 335-6, fig. 528). For further information on Tula artistry, see M. Malchecko, Art Objects in Steel by Tula Craftsmen, Leningrad, 1974.
A steel and gold snuff box, inscribed Kolbe à St. Petersburg, circa 1765, sold at Sotheby's, Zurich, November 17, 1976, lot 225 and is illustrated in Alexander von Solodkoff, Orfèvrerie russe XVIIe au XIXe siècle, 1981, no. 189. Another oval vari-colored gold-mounted steel snuff box, circa 1760, is illustrated in Géza von Habsburg-Lothringen, Gold Boxes from the Collection of Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert, 1983, no. 8. pp. 31-32.
A steel and gold snuff box, inscribed Kolbe à St. Petersburg, circa 1765, sold at Sotheby's, Zurich, November 17, 1976, lot 225 and is illustrated in Alexander von Solodkoff, Orfèvrerie russe XVIIe au XIXe siècle, 1981, no. 189. Another oval vari-colored gold-mounted steel snuff box, circa 1760, is illustrated in Géza von Habsburg-Lothringen, Gold Boxes from the Collection of Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert, 1983, no. 8. pp. 31-32.