.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
The quality and fine chasing of this box suggests that it is the work of Charles (1720-1790) and his brother Pierre-Etienne Toussaint (1726-1806), Berlin bijoutiers of Huguenot descent who arrived in Hanau in 1752. They quickly rose to prominence so that by 1762 they had a large workshop and were employing several German craftsmen, chasers and engravers.
Their boxes are generally marked with initials LDF alongside a mark resembling the Paris charge and décharge of 1768-1774 and the date-letter K for 1773-74. However, the marks on this box are those for the charge and décharge of 1756-1762 suggesting that the box was made in the 1760s. These marks are also recorded on two stylistically identical snuff-boxes held in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (acc. no.48.187.422 and 48.187.471) and are discussed by L. Seelig in Eighteenth Century Hanau gold boxes, Silver Society of Canada Journal, 2015, vol. 18, p.36.
Their boxes are generally marked with initials LDF alongside a mark resembling the Paris charge and décharge of 1768-1774 and the date-letter K for 1773-74. However, the marks on this box are those for the charge and décharge of 1756-1762 suggesting that the box was made in the 1760s. These marks are also recorded on two stylistically identical snuff-boxes held in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (acc. no.48.187.422 and 48.187.471) and are discussed by L. Seelig in Eighteenth Century Hanau gold boxes, Silver Society of Canada Journal, 2015, vol. 18, p.36.