BY JEAN-BERNARD SAUVAGE (FL. 1749-1791), MARKED, PARIS, 1769/1770, WITH THE CHARGE AND DECHARGE MARKS OF JULIEN ALATERRE 1768-1774

The engraving '6th Duke' on the later inside cover lining, appears on a number of boxes sold in these rooms that were previously in the collection of the Dukes of Beaufort. An enamelled gold box of 1770/1771 by Nicolas Prévost, enamelled with a ground colour similar to the present box, is in the Gilbert Collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum, C. Truman, The Gilbert Collection of Gold Boxes, Los Angeles, 1991, pp. 90-91. This colour ground was used on gold boxes sometime before 1764 and also enjoyed a brief period of popularity at the Sèvres manufactory from c.1778 to c.1785. Nicolas Schradre (active 1773-85) and Jean-Jacques Dieu (active 1776-1805) were the two Sèvres artists who developed this particular technique for use on porcelain. A pair of Sèvres vases of 1781 in the Royal Collection, London, are painted using this technique (London 1979A, no. 28).