A French silver double spice-box

PROBABLY EARLY 18TH CENTURY, BEARING LATER MARKS FOR PARIS

Details

A French silver double spice-box
Probably early 18th century, bearing later marks for Paris
Shaped oblong on four shell and foliage bracket feet, the plain body of shaped outline and applied at the ends with two lion's masks, the covers with gadrooned borders and central hinge opening to reveal four compartments, and with central cylindrical nutmeg-grater chased with foliage on matted ground and with baluster finial, engraved with accolé coat-of-arms, marked on base, sides and cover, also with post-1838 marks presumably on repair
13 cm. (5.1/4 in.) long
443 gr. (14 oz.)

Lot Essay

An almost identical spice box was formerly in the Burns Collection and is now in the Farrer Collection, the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. It is identified in the catalogue as being the work of Grégoire Massé, Paris, 1707 (see A. E. Jones, Catalogue of the Plate Collection of William Francis Farrer at No. 7, St. James Square, London, London, 1924, p. 171, pl. XC, no.2). The present box was accepted by the museum as being almost certainly also by Massé.

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