A FRENCH GOLD-LINED PORPHYRY BONBONNIÈRE SET WITH A ROMAN MICRO-MOSAIC

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A FRENCH GOLD-LINED PORPHYRY BONBONNIÈRE SET WITH A ROMAN MICRO-MOSAIC
by Adrien-Jean-Maximilien Vachette, Paris, the flange engraved "Vachette Bijoutier à Paris", the micro-mosaic by Giacomo Raffaelli, Rome, signed and dated on the reverse 1800.

Circular stone box, the independent lid inset with a circular micro-mosaic plaque depicting a hound attentively observing a white duck swimming in a lake, within a gold frame decorated with a translucent blue enamel band on a guilloché ground -- 83 mm diam.., the stone cover with well-restored hairline cracking.

Lot Essay

The signature on the metal back of the micro-mosaic reads: Giacomo Raffaelli feci in Roma 1800. Giacomo Raffaelli (1753-1836) was renowned for the high quality of his works. Among his first admirers was King Stanislas Augustus II Poniatowski who ennobled him and styled him his Consultant in Fine Arts, in 1787. In 1804, Raffaelli founded a studio for Mosaic Art in Milan on the order of Prince Eugène de Beauharnais, Vice-King of Italy. Back in Rome circa 1815-1820, he was created Consultant of Emperor Alexander I of Russia (see Domenico Petochi, I mosaici minuti Romani dei secoli XVIII e XIX, Florence, 1981, pp. 65-67).

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