Snuffbox

Small gold boxes intended to hold snuff, a form of powdered and often scented tobacco, became a focus of an elaborate social ritual and a symbol of extravagance and vanity in eighteenth-century France.



The containers were usually of such luxurious nature that they were the ultimate fashion accessories in eighteenth-century Europe and were frequently given as presents. Beginning in the 1720s and continuing up to the French Revolution, snuff boxes were produced in significant quantities.



Typical of the gold snuffboxes of the 1770s is the combination of decorative elements drawn from the neo-classical vocabulary such as pilasters, husk garlands, guilloche motifs and medallions framed by laurel wreaths, as seen on this multi-colored gold box.



Boxes like this were sold by many marchands merciers or dealers in luxury goods. One of the foremost in Paris was Au petit Dunkerque, the emporium of Charles Raymond Granchez who became the bijoutier du Roi and subsequently de la Reine (jeweler to the king and queen). The Welsh author Hester Thrale recorded her visit on October 27, 1775: We went…to the Great Toy Shop called the Petit Dunkerque. I bought a trinket or two and longed for a Snuffbox of exquisite beauty.



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.