A VERY FINE AND RARE LOUIS XV VARI-COLOUR GOLD SNUFF-BOX

BY JOHANN FRIEDRICH BTTNER (FL. 1746-1768), MARKED, WITH THE DATE LETTER FOR STRASBOURG 1768 AND THE STRASBOURG GOLD STANDARD MARK

Details

A VERY FINE AND RARE LOUIS XV VARI-COLOUR GOLD SNUFF-BOX
by Johann Friedrich Bttner (fl. 1746-1768), marked, with the date letter for Strasbourg 1768 and the Strasbourg gold standard mark
Oval box, the cover and base boldly chased with a basket of flowers in four-colour gold on a sabl ground, within a lobed oval reserve surrounded by a lobed burnished gold band and a bright-cut edged gold ribbon interspersed with flowers in vari-colour gold, within a laurel border divided by four scroll clusters, the sides engraved with a diaper pattern and set with baskets of flowers suspended from white gold knotted ribbons on a matted ground in lobed reserves alternating with floral rosettes in identical reserves
3 in. (84 mm.) wide
5.5 oz. (182 gr.)

Provenance

Jean-Frdric de Pierre (1735-1800), conseiller d'Etat of Neuchatel and Chamberlain of the King of Prussia.
By family descent to the present owner.

Lot Essay

Snuff-boxes by King Stanislas Leszczynski's Court Goldsmith Johann Friedrich Bttner (also spelled Jean-Frdric Bittner) are extremely rare. A rectangular one, dated 1754 and illustrated in J. Helft, Le poinon des provinces franaises, Paris, 1968, pl. LXIX, was recently sold Sotheby's, Geneva, 16 May 1995, lot 81; two ingot shaped ones, of 1767 and 1768, were in a sale at Sotheby's, Geneva, 6 May 1981, lots 66 and 67. A rectangular one of 1762-1763 sold for SF280,000 at Christie's, Geneva, 15 November 1988 (lot 237). An oval one, of 1767, is in the Muse de l'Horlogerie et de l'Emaillerie, Geneva (M. Gauthey, Catalogue des tabatires et tuis de la donation Xavier Givaudan, Geneva, 1969, pp. 150-151).

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