CIRCA 1750, BLUE CROSSED SWORDS AND SCRIPT K.P.M. MARK TO THE INTERIOR, THE MOUNTS CONTEMPORARY WITH THE PORCELAIN AND STRUCK WITH A LONDON IMPORT MARK FOR 1935

The decoration on the present box is taken from a series of twenty-one engavings by Jacques Callot (1592-1635) called the Gobbi or Hunch-backs and dating circa 1622 and from another series called the Capricci of similar date. See Barbara Beauchamp-Markowsky, Collection of 18th Century Porcelain Boxes on Loan to the Rijlsmuseum, Amsterdam, Amsterdam, 1988, no. 31 for a similarly decorated triangular box painted with many of the same figures found on the present example and for a detailed identification of their derivations.