A FINE LOUIS XV GOLD BOÎTE-À-MINIATURES

Details

A FINE LOUIS XV GOLD BOÎTE-À-MINIATURES
BY LOUIS ROUCEL, MARKED AND SIGNED, PARIS, 1766/1767, WITH THE CHARGE AND DISCHARGE MARKS OF JEAN-JACQUES PREVOST, THE MINIATURES IN THE MANNER OF VENEVAULT

Circular snuff-box, the cover, four side panels and base inset with glazed gouache and watercolour miniatures depicting Diana the Huntress with her attendants and her hound in a wooded landscape, a young female gardener catching apples from putti in a tree, and playful amoretti at various pursuits, the cagework gold mounts chased with lozenges alternating with rosettes on a matted ground with festoons of laurel and reeded pilasters, the flange engraved Roucel Orfe du Roi AParis
68 mm. diam.

Provenance

Marquess of Clanricarde
Earl of Harewood Collection, sold Christie's London, 21 April 1964, lot 39.

Literature

Clare Le Corbeiller, European and American Snuff Boxes 1730-1830, London, 1966, illustr. colour pl. II d, opp. p. 25.

Lot Essay

Louis Roucel (d. 1787) struck his mark in 1763 and became Orfèvre du Roi in 1764. From 1763 until 1776 he supplied gold boxes to the Service des Menus-Plaisirs including the jewels for the corbeille de mariage of Marie-Antoinette in 1770.

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