A two-colour gold and enamel snuff box, 19th century in earlier taste
Auction Closed
October 14, 05:38 PM GMT
Estimate
5,000 - 7,000 EUR
Lot Details
Description
A two-colour gold and enamel snuff box, 19th cent👍ury in earlier taste
rectangular, the lid centred with an oval enamel plaque painted with 'Telemachus, in the Desert of Oasis, consoled by Termosiris a Priest of Apollo', based on an engraving after Charles Monnet (1732-1808, see fig. 1), in a frame of white enamel bands alternating with chased lime gold flower heads, surrounded by a fluted ground picked out in translucent dark green enamel, framed by a border of chased laurel interlaced with a geometrial opaque white enamel band, the sides and base similarly decorated, French prestige marks including maker's mark, charge and discharge mark of Henri Clavel (1782-1789), Paris date letter,
weight: 265.7 g
length 3¼ in.; 8,6 cm.
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Tabatière en or de deux couleurs et émail, XIX🅰 siècleꦉ
rectangulaire, le couvercle centré d'une plaque en émail peinte d'après une gravure de Charles Monnet (1732-1808), le fond ciselé en émail translucide vert foncé, poinçons apocryphes dont poinçon d'orfèvre, poinçons de charge et de décharge d'Henri Clavel (1782-1789), lettre-date de Paris
weight: 265.7 g
length 3¼ in.; 8,6 cm.
Gontaut-Biron Collection; thence by descent;
Christie's London, 10 June 2010, lot 293.
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Collection Gon💟taut-Biron; puis par descendance familiale;
Christie's Londres, 10 juin 2010, lot 293.
The subject represented on this box is taken from an illustration of The Adventures of Telemachus, a novel originally published in French in 1699. Its author, François Fénelon, was an archbishop who was given the weighty responsibility of tutoring the young Duke of Burgundy, grandson of Louis XIV and second in line to the French throne. While The Adventures of Telemachus was written as an educatiꦓonal tool for the young Duke, it quickly became extremely popular across Europe and remained so for much of the eighteenth century, with the illustrations also being circulated as sources for enamel painters.
A different episode from the same series of engravings can for example be found on a gold and enamel snuff box by Joseph-Étienne Blerzy from the same collection as the present lot, to be sold Sotheby's Paris, Hotel Lambert, Chefs d’œuvre, 11 October 2022, lot 72.