现场拍卖 6903IMPORTANT GOLD BOXES,OBJECTS OF VERTU & PORTRAIT MINIATURES
A FINE LOUIS XVI JEWELLED AND ENAMELLED GOLD SNUFF-BOX SET WITH A MINIATURE
拍品 102

A FINE LOUIS XVI JEWELLED AND ENAMELLED GOLD SNUFF-BOX SET WITH A MINIATURE

BY JOSEPH-ETIENNE BLERZY (FL. 1768-1808), MARKED, PARIS, 1784/1785, WITH THE SECOND CHARGE AND DISCHARGE MARKS OF HENRY CLAVEL 1782-1789, STRUCK WITH INVENTORY NO. 509, THE MINIATURE LATER

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GBP 40,630

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A FINE LOUIS XVI JEWELLED AND ENAMELLED GOLD SNUFF-BOX SET WITH A MINIATURE
by Joseph-Etienne Blerzy (fl. 1768-1808), marked, Paris, 1784/1785, with the second charge and discharge marks of Henry Clavel 1782-1789, struck with inventory no. 509, the miniature later
Oval gold box, the cover centred by a glazed oval miniature depicting the Comtesse Dubarry (1741-1793), facing right in gold-figured red dress with white lace borders applied with green silk bows, jewelled and pearl-set brooches, green velvet cloak, her powdered hair set with pearls and jewels, wearing jewelled earrings and a gold medallion containing the initials LD, surmounted by a gold Bourbon lily, suspended from a blue silk ribbon around her neck, her oval portrait within a garland of flowers held by two putti in clouds, the matted gold borders decorated with translucent green enamelled quatrefoils alternating with silver-mounted old-mine cut diamonds, within white enamel fillets, the base enamelled in translucent blue encrusted with gold paillon stars on an engine-turned radiating sunburst ground, the rectangular four side panels with matching translucent blue guilloché enamel scattered with gold paillon stars, all fluted gold borders within white enamel bands, the matted gold four side dividers enamelled with brown simulated moss agate "trees" on opalescent pink ovolos surmounted by translucent green enamelled bows and foliage, the lower border of the sides and broad border of the base enamelled with oyster-pink opalescent beads alternating with translucent green enamelled leaves and quatrefoils
3¼ in. (83 mm.) wide

Stroganoff Collection; sold Rome, 20-27 April 1925, lot 623.
The Estate of the late Mrs Charles E. Dunlap; Sotheby's, Monaco, 29 November 1975, lot 133 (75,000 FFr.).
'Highly Important Snuff Boxes, The Property of the British Rail Pension Fund'; Sotheby's, Geneva, 15 May 1990, lot 34 (110,000 SFr.).

专家说明

An identical miniature mounted on a gold box was successively in the collections of Prince Demidoff and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, sold Sotheby's, London, 22 November 1956, lot 52. Other miniatures by this unidentified but highly talented artist are in the Louvre (mounted on a gold box of 1766/1767 by Charles-Barnabé Sageret, illustrated in S. Grandjean, Les tabatières du musée du Louvre, Paris, 1981, no. 189), in the Victoria and Albert Museum (see C. Truman, French Gold Boxes, Victoria & Albert Museum, London, 1977, front cover illustration) and in the Portland Art Museum, Oregon.
Marie-Jeanne Bécu, daughter of a dressmaker in Vaucouleurs, became a shopgirl in Paris and soon gained popularity in the demi-monde as Jean du Barry's mistress. Presented at court in 1768, she caught the fancy of the ageing king Louis XV who married her off to Jean du Barry's brother comte Guillaume du Barry, in order to qualify her as his official court mistress. She wielded considerable influence on the king, often with disastrous political consequences such as the downfall of finance minister Choiseul and the rise of the triumvirate of her favorites Maupeou, d'Aiguillon and Terray. An important patron of the arts and of the jewellery trade, she squandered vast sums of state money. On the king's death in 1774, she was immediately banished from court by King Louis XVI and Queen Marie-Antoinette. At the French Revolution, she emigrated to London but returned to Paris in order to retrieve her hidden jewels and was caught by the Revolutionaries, tried and guillotined in 1793. For a miniature of one of her numerous lovers, the ill-fated Duc de Brissac, see lot 139.