FLORENCE, OPICIFIO DELLE PIETRE DURE, CIRCA 1800

細節

A ITALIAN VARI-COLOUR GOLD-MOUNTED HARDSTONE SNUFF-BOX
Florence, Opicifio delle Pietre Dure, circa 1800
Octagonal jade box, the panels on cover, sides and base encrusted with trophies of music in various pietre dure and pietre tenere, with bright-cut gold cagework mounts on the lid, sides and base, the matted gold mounts on the sides chased with trophies of music and with flowers and foliage in four-colour gold
3 1/8 in. (80 mm.) wide

來源

A nobleman; Christie's, Geneva, 21 May 1997, lot 280 (to Dreesmann).
Dr Anton C. R. Dreesmann (inventory no. F-218).

注意事項

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.

拍品專文

An extremely similar jade snuff-box, also inlaid with pietra dura musical motifs but of oval shape, is in the Gilbert Collection, London (inventory no. 1996.525), extensively discussed both in Charles Truman, The Gilbert Collection of Gold Boxes. Volume Two, London, 1999, pp. 97-98, and in Anna-Maria Massinelli, The Gilbert Collection. Hardstones, London, 2000, p. 154. The latter points out that although 'the use of jade was not particularly common in the Florentine workshop, there are various documents of the period that refer to jade boxes'. She also mentions that the gold mounts for these kind of boxes were frequently executed by the Florentine goldsmith Clemente Capecchi. For the oval box in the Gilbert Collection, the preparatory sketches, dated 22 October 1795 and attributed to Carlo Carlieri, have been unearthed in the archives of the Museo dell'Opificio delle Pietre Dure in Florence. Considering the similarities in the choice of the stones and of the motifs, it may be assumed that the Gilbert box and the present box are by the hands of the same craftsmen working in the Grand Ducal workshop.