Patch box

The interior of this patch box is divided lengthwise into two compartments. One has a hinged cover enameled to match the exterior, the other is open and contains a small brush with a gold handle. It is likely that it was used for applying or “touching up” makeup.

The panels on the box are embellished with paillons, small pieces of gold foil rolled extremely thin and cut or stamped into different shapes which are then fired between two coats of translucent enamel.

The maker’s mark on this box is indecipherable. However, Joseph-Étienne Blerzy (1735–1821), one of the most prominent gold box makers of this period, was in the forefront of taste in using paillons. Boxes with Blerzy’s mark and comparable decoration – engine-turned gold panels covered with translucent enamel and fleur-de-lis – are known in other collections, including The Wallace Collection, London (G63) and the Thurn und Taxis collection, Regensburg (No. 93/235). It is, of course, possible that the same skilled enameller was engaged by different goldsmiths, not just by Blerzy.

However, Blerzy appears to have used some sort of numbering system whose order and purpose are still to be established. They may refer to a pattern or stock number; some numbers were struck before a certain box was completed and prior to the application of the enamel. The presence of the number 253 on the rim of this box may point to Blerzy as the maker of this patch box.

Daughter of one of the founders of the Weyerhaeuser Timber Company, Catherine D. Wentworth (1865–1948) was an art student and painter who lived in France for thirty years.She became one of the most important American collectors of eighteenth-century French silver and on her death in 1948 bequeathed part of her significant collection of silver, gold boxes, French furniture and textiles to the Metropolitan Museum.