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.

This varicolored gold box is decorated with symbols of the four seasons in panels on a moiré engraved ground.

Inscribed on the rim is the name George à Paris. Jean George was one of the most prolific and distinguished Parisian Marchand-orfèvres-joailliers. However, in the light of current scholarship, the only certainty is that the goldsmith whose marks or name are found on the item (in this case Jean George) either sent the box for assay or that he retailed it. In the eighteenth century generally, if boxes were attributed at all, they were ascribed to the decorator such as the enameller or miniaturist probably on stylistic grounds.

A sale of Jean George’s possessions after his death in 1765 included a “quantity of new jewelry in the latest taste from the workshop of M. George, such as snuffboxes, étuis, scent bottles, patch boxes, candy boxes, shuttles, étuis de pieces, men’s and women’s watches, chains, seals in gold as well as in gold and enamel.”

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.