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.

Boxes made entirely of gold in multiple colors were at the height of fashion in Paris in the mid 1750s. Those decorated with bouquets of flowers silhouetted against a sunburst are often associated with the goldsmith Jean Ducrollay (b. 1709, master in 1734, the maker of a very similar box in The Met collection (1977.228.2).

While the name “George à Paris” is engraved on the rim of this oblong box seems to suggest that the goldsmith Jean George created it. However, since George is recorded as selling work by other goldsmiths, it is possible that not he, but another artist, was responsible for this box, possibly Ducrollay.

On September 5, 1757, the loss of “une tabatière de chasse en or, dont les 6 faces, gravées en soleil, portent un bouquet de fleurs d’ors de couleurs” (a gold snuffbox for the hunt, with all six sides engraved with a sunburst pattern and flowers in different colors gold) was advertised by Jean George. A tabatière de chasse (or journée de chasse) likely implies that the box held sufficient snuff for a day’s hunting. This box or a very similar one may have been the one referred to in the advertisement.

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.