A FINE SWISS VARI-COLORED GOLD MUSICAL CARILLON SNUFF BOX

GENEVA, CIRCA 1785; ATTRIBUTED TO THE MAKER "M&P"

Details

A FINE SWISS VARI-COLORED GOLD MUSICAL CARILLON SNUFF BOX
Geneva, circa 1785; attributed to the maker "M&P"
Oval, the hinged cover with an oval reserve finely chased with figures playing music in a garden against a velvet-matted ground, surrounded by engraved ground applied with chased vari-colored gold floral garlands, the sides with similar oval reserves with love trophies and garden urns joined by green gold festoons and varicolored gold garlands above an architectural balustrade, pierced for music, the base with similar decoration centering Cupid, hinged and pierced, and opening to reveal the 6-bell musical carillon, with fusee movement, playing two tunes, cover and interior marked with two incuse leaves flanking indistinct maker's mark ?M&P
3½in. (91mm.) long

Lot Essay

The M&P maker's mark appears on a number of Geneva boxes of the late 18th century in French taste (see Serge Grandjean, Catalogue des tabatières, boîtes, et étuis du Museé du Louvre, 1981, figs. 602-606). One of the Louvre snuffboxes by this maker is a four-color gold oval box very similar in style to the case of the present example, although it is not musical. A very fine musical automaton snuffbox with four-bell carillon by M&P of Geneva is in the Gilbert Collection at Somerset House (Charles Truman, The Gilbert Collection of Gold Boxes, 1991, fig. 121, pp. 348-349). The M&P boxes are distinguished by very finely chiselled and matted goldwork.

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