Frédéric Philippi (1814-1892) moved to Paris from his native Hanover in 1836, following extensive training in Hamburg followed by study in all the main artistic centres of Germany and Austria. At first associated with the jewellery firm of Caillot, he soon made a name for himself in Paris and set up his own workshop concentrating at first on then popular rings set with blue glass and applied with rose diamond flower sprays. Once established with a dozen workmen, a stone setter, an engraver and four apprentices, his studio became known as a place for individual special orders particularly for artistic Historismus enamelled jewellery in the German renaissance taste. Surprisingly he was also known for elegantly enamelled snuff boxes in Louis XVI taste. Following the sad irony of his eldest son's death in the Franco- Prussian war, he lost heart and the firm was finally taken over in 1876 by his old employers. At his peak in the mid-century Philippi produced exquisite work such as this face à main which is closely related to a bracelet, now in the musée des Arts Décoratifs, by Fannière Frères. The bracelet is composed of very similar gold scrollwork enclosed by black and white enamel and centered with a similar diamond-framed carnelian cameo of a Mercury head.