PROBABLY ENGLISH, CIRCA 1795/1800, BEARING FRENCH MARKS

The present lot is stylistically similar to a handful of known English snuff-boxes. Two gold boxes of 1798 and 1799, which are congruently chased and formed, are illustrated in R. and M. Norton, A History of Gold Snuff Boxes, London, 1938, pl. 28b. A third known example of this English style attributed to George Hall, London, 1799, was sold Christie's, London, 16 November 1976, lot 139. A further English snuff-box, of 1801-1802, which relates stylistically to the present lot, but is applied with enamel flowers, is illustrated in C. Le Corbeiller, European and American Snuff Boxes, 1730-1830, London, 1966, no. 296. The existence of a very similar box by Lars Boyle, Stockholm, 1764, recorded by K. Snowman as belonging to the King of Sweden, complicates the firm attribution of the box as English (K. Snowman, Eighteenth Century Gold Boxes of Europe, London, 1966, no. 663). It is possible that the distinctive form and pattern of the present lot exerted influence on patrons and their goldsmiths at the increasingly international courts of the late 18th Century.