Lot Essay
The technique of encrustation of tinted shell and bone into an engraved or engine-turned gold ground was very fashionable amidst the Berlin goldsmiths under Frederick the Great, as one can see in the works by Daniel Baudesson or Pierre-Aldebert Griot. A very similar carnet-de-bal by the latter is in the Kunstgewerbemuseum Berlin, inv. no. 66,142.