拍品專文
A note with this box states that it belonged to James, 1st Lord Glenlyon (see note to lot 93) .
Claude de Villers (maitre 1718-1755) seems to have worked at the Gobelins Factory for his entire career, producing gold boxes directly for the Royal household, whilst Vallayer is recorded as the supplier of a box 'encrustie à fond d'or representant la paix' to the Menus-Plaisir in 1749 for 2,600 livres, (A. Maize-Sencier Le Livre des Collectioneurs, Paris, 1885 p.153). This is probably the box, by Claude de Villers, Paris 1747-8 illustrated in A.K. Snowman, Eighteenth Century Gold Boxes of Paris, a catalogue of the Ortiz Patino Collection, 1974 no.17 and included in The Ortiz-Patino Collection of Highly Important French Gold Boxes, part III, Christie's, 26 June 1974, lot 20 sold for #20,000. This box depicts allegorical scenes, the cover with Minerva, having layed aside her shield and holding an olive branch, greeting Plenty. Each panel is encrusted with carved mother-of-pearl on a burnished ground and mounted à cage, the mounts enamelled en basse taille with green foliage, precisely in the manner of the present lot. A third box, from the Collection of Her Royal Highness, the late Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent and illustrated in A.K. Snowman, Eighteenth Century Gold Boxes of Europe, Woodbridge, 1990 pl.227, by de Villers, Paris, 1747-48, also decorated in the same manner, depicts The Judgement of Paris on the cover, with other allegorical scenes. All three boxes are inscribed 'Vallayer aux Gobelins' and appear to have been made as a series.
Exactly the same technique is repeated in a box in the Metropolitan Museum, New York, by de Villers, Paris, 1750, inscribed 'Vallayer à Paris' which tells the story of Cupid and Psyche. This is referred to as a direct comparison to a box by de Villers of the same date, but not inscribed, with identical scenes of Cupid and Psyche, but against an engraved ground, see C. Le Courbeiller, European and American Snuff-Boxes 1730-1830, London, 1966 no.28, which was sold at Christie's Geneva, 25 May 1993, lot 87
The technique of the present box was closely followed by Henri Delobel for the panels and mounts of a box with scenes after David Teniers the Younger, Paris, 1749-50 (C.Truman The Gilbert Collection of Gold Boxes (Los Angeles, 1991) no.10) which in turn is compared to a box by Jean Ducrollay, Paris, 1750/52 (S. Grandjean, Les Tabatiére du Musée du Louvre (Paris, 1981) no.97), which depicts similar genre scenes.
It has been suggested that the panels for all these boxes may have been supplied by the same craftsman or workshop through a marchand mercier and that the carving originated in Germany. For the two genre boxes this seems likely as the scenes are comparable to those on a Berlin box, circa 1860, where the background is engraved with a diaper pattern illustrated in A.K. Snowman, Eighteenth Century Gold Boxes of Europe, Woodbridge, 1990 pl.733. Whereas the allegorical scenes on the boxes by Villers have no such counterparts and were probably taken from designs commissioned in France. The mounts and burnished ground give a uniformity to the boxes which implies an unsubstantiated suggestion that the carving is all by the same hand. Certainly all of the panels on the de Villers boxes appear to have been executed by the same craftsman, but whether they were produced in Germany or in France, as Charles Truman suggests for the panels on an earlier box by de Villers (C. Truman, The Gilbert Collection of Gold Boxes (Los Angeles, 1991) p.45), remains a matter for conjecture.
This group illustrates the change in taste and transition from allegorical to genre scenes on snuff-boxes in the mid-eighteenth century and it is interesting to compare the graceful Triumph of Galatea on the cover of the present box with the more frivolous revival enamelled on the base of a box by Jean Georges, Paris, 1762/66, see C.Truman, The Gilbert Collection of Gold Boxes, Los Angeles, 1991 p.71.
Claude de Villers (maitre 1718-1755) seems to have worked at the Gobelins Factory for his entire career, producing gold boxes directly for the Royal household, whilst Vallayer is recorded as the supplier of a box 'encrustie à fond d'or representant la paix' to the Menus-Plaisir in 1749 for 2,600 livres, (A. Maize-Sencier Le Livre des Collectioneurs, Paris, 1885 p.153). This is probably the box, by Claude de Villers, Paris 1747-8 illustrated in A.K. Snowman, Eighteenth Century Gold Boxes of Paris, a catalogue of the Ortiz Patino Collection, 1974 no.17 and included in The Ortiz-Patino Collection of Highly Important French Gold Boxes, part III, Christie's, 26 June 1974, lot 20 sold for #20,000. This box depicts allegorical scenes, the cover with Minerva, having layed aside her shield and holding an olive branch, greeting Plenty. Each panel is encrusted with carved mother-of-pearl on a burnished ground and mounted à cage, the mounts enamelled en basse taille with green foliage, precisely in the manner of the present lot. A third box, from the Collection of Her Royal Highness, the late Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent and illustrated in A.K. Snowman, Eighteenth Century Gold Boxes of Europe, Woodbridge, 1990 pl.227, by de Villers, Paris, 1747-48, also decorated in the same manner, depicts The Judgement of Paris on the cover, with other allegorical scenes. All three boxes are inscribed 'Vallayer aux Gobelins' and appear to have been made as a series.
Exactly the same technique is repeated in a box in the Metropolitan Museum, New York, by de Villers, Paris, 1750, inscribed 'Vallayer à Paris' which tells the story of Cupid and Psyche. This is referred to as a direct comparison to a box by de Villers of the same date, but not inscribed, with identical scenes of Cupid and Psyche, but against an engraved ground, see C. Le Courbeiller, European and American Snuff-Boxes 1730-1830, London, 1966 no.28, which was sold at Christie's Geneva, 25 May 1993, lot 87
The technique of the present box was closely followed by Henri Delobel for the panels and mounts of a box with scenes after David Teniers the Younger, Paris, 1749-50 (C.Truman The Gilbert Collection of Gold Boxes (Los Angeles, 1991) no.10) which in turn is compared to a box by Jean Ducrollay, Paris, 1750/52 (S. Grandjean, Les Tabatiére du Musée du Louvre (Paris, 1981) no.97), which depicts similar genre scenes.
It has been suggested that the panels for all these boxes may have been supplied by the same craftsman or workshop through a marchand mercier and that the carving originated in Germany. For the two genre boxes this seems likely as the scenes are comparable to those on a Berlin box, circa 1860, where the background is engraved with a diaper pattern illustrated in A.K. Snowman, Eighteenth Century Gold Boxes of Europe, Woodbridge, 1990 pl.733. Whereas the allegorical scenes on the boxes by Villers have no such counterparts and were probably taken from designs commissioned in France. The mounts and burnished ground give a uniformity to the boxes which implies an unsubstantiated suggestion that the carving is all by the same hand. Certainly all of the panels on the de Villers boxes appear to have been executed by the same craftsman, but whether they were produced in Germany or in France, as Charles Truman suggests for the panels on an earlier box by de Villers (C. Truman, The Gilbert Collection of Gold Boxes (Los Angeles, 1991) p.45), remains a matter for conjecture.
This group illustrates the change in taste and transition from allegorical to genre scenes on snuff-boxes in the mid-eighteenth century and it is interesting to compare the graceful Triumph of Galatea on the cover of the present box with the more frivolous revival enamelled on the base of a box by Jean Georges, Paris, 1762/66, see C.Truman, The Gilbert Collection of Gold Boxes, Los Angeles, 1991 p.71.