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Lot Essay
Whilst it is already rare to find Louis XV gold snuff-boxes having descended in noble families from the first to the present owner, the survival and direct provenance of these precious objects within families of the bourgeoisie is of exceptional character.
Louis-Philippe Demay worked for the services of the Présents du Roi and of the Menus Plaisirs of King Louis XV. Among his clients was also the notorious Countess du Barry. According to Serge Grandjean (Les tabatières du musée du Louvre, Paris, 1981, p. 79), only eleven boxes by Demay are recorded, all dated between 1760 and 1769. These include the four snuff-boxes in the Louvre and the three boxes in the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the present hitherto unrecorded box is an interesting addition to Demay's oeuvre.
Louis-Philippe Demay worked for the services of the Présents du Roi and of the Menus Plaisirs of King Louis XV. Among his clients was also the notorious Countess du Barry. According to Serge Grandjean (Les tabatières du musée du Louvre, Paris, 1981, p. 79), only eleven boxes by Demay are recorded, all dated between 1760 and 1769. These include the four snuff-boxes in the Louvre and the three boxes in the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the present hitherto unrecorded box is an interesting addition to Demay's oeuvre.