The present box belongs to a small group of finely crafted gold and enamel boxes all bearing mark MP sometimes crowned or with heart above, probably produced in Hanau between circa 1760 and 1780. It is now generally accepted that boxes bearing these various marks were produced by the same group of makers, or within a common workshop, with the letter C most likely denoting Compagnie.
Situated near Frankfurt, Hanau emerged as one of the leading centres for the production of luxury Galanteriewaren, rivalled only by Geneva for the scale and quality of its output during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Like Geneva, Hanau developed a network of specialised workshops bringing together goldsmiths, case-makers, engine-turners, lapidaries, watchmakers and enamellers, whose collaboration offered both economic and practical advantages. Many of these families, often of Huguenot origin, maintained close ties through intermarriage between Hanau and Geneva (see Julia Clarke, ‘The Geneva Fabrique: Watch Case Makers to Enamel Painters’, in The Majesty of the Chinese Market Watch, Ian White and Julia Clarke, London, 2019). The resulting exchange of skills and artistic influences explains the striking similarities in design, technique, colour palette and construction found among gold boxes, toothpick and bodkin cases, and other contemporary objects of vertu produced in both centres.
Christie's sold a comparable box in Paris, 24 November 2021, lot 640.