BY PIERRE-FRANÇOIS MATHIS DE BEAULIEU (FL. 1768-1791), MARKED, PARIS, 1773/1774, STAMPED 397, WITH THE CHARGE MARK OF JULIEN ALATERRE 1768-1774 AND THE DECHARGE MARK OF JEAN-BAPTISTE FOUACHE 1774-1780, STRUCK WITH THE PARISIAN POST-1838 STANDARD MARK FOR GOLD, THE FLANGE ENGRAVED 'DU PETIT DUNKERKE'

Pierre-François Mathis de Beaulieu was one of the best-known gold box makers of the Louis XV and Louis XVI periods. He was apprenticed to Jean George whose widow he later married. Boxes by his hand are to be found in the Wallace Collection, the Ashmolean Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Cleveland Museum of Art and in the Louvre. Carolyn Sargentson (Merchants and Luxury Markets, London, 1996, pp. 119-127) gives an excellent account of Charles Raymond Granchez, the celebrated marchand mercier whose shop 'Au Petit Dunkerke' flourished between 1767 and 1787 at 3 quai de Conti at the corner of the rue Dauphine. She points out that Granchez obviously stocked boxes which reflected current fashions and 'successful' models.