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Lot Essay
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 La Comtesse du Barry. According to S. 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 four snuff-boxes in the Louvre and three boxes in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The scene on the cover depicts Philip of Acarnania, a friend and physician of Alexander, saving the king's life when he had been seized with a severe attack of fever. Parmenion had sent a letter to warn Alexander that Philip had been bribed by Darius III to poison him. Alexander, however, would not doubt the honesty of his physician and drank the draught that Philip had prepared for him. The king's speedy recovery fully justified his confidence in the skill and honesty of his physician who later removed an arrow from Alexander's shoulder following the siege of Gaza in 332 BC.
The scene on the base depicts the meeting between Alexander and the philosopher Diogenes. For centuries of European art, it was one of the most frequently portrayed moments from classical antiquity. Diogenes was the antisocial, ascetic philosopher who lived in a barrel and rejected all of the norms of civilized behaviour. He is usually portrayed as almost naked and unkempt, with long hair and a beard. The brief encounter between the two is generally said to have taken place in Corinth, where Diogenes lived in his later years. In the most famous exchange of the meeting, Alexander asked Diogenes whether there was anything he could do for him. Diogenes, who was enjoying the warmth of the autumn sun, answered, “Stand aside to stop blocking the sun.”
The scene on the cover depicts Philip of Acarnania, a friend and physician of Alexander, saving the king's life when he had been seized with a severe attack of fever. Parmenion had sent a letter to warn Alexander that Philip had been bribed by Darius III to poison him. Alexander, however, would not doubt the honesty of his physician and drank the draught that Philip had prepared for him. The king's speedy recovery fully justified his confidence in the skill and honesty of his physician who later removed an arrow from Alexander's shoulder following the siege of Gaza in 332 BC.
The scene on the base depicts the meeting between Alexander and the philosopher Diogenes. For centuries of European art, it was one of the most frequently portrayed moments from classical antiquity. Diogenes was the antisocial, ascetic philosopher who lived in a barrel and rejected all of the norms of civilized behaviour. He is usually portrayed as almost naked and unkempt, with long hair and a beard. The brief encounter between the two is generally said to have taken place in Corinth, where Diogenes lived in his later years. In the most famous exchange of the meeting, Alexander asked Diogenes whether there was anything he could do for him. Diogenes, who was enjoying the warmth of the autumn sun, answered, “Stand aside to stop blocking the sun.”