SNUFFBOX WITH MINIATURE OF EMPRESS ELIZABETH I

Creator(s): Etienne-Lucien Blerzy (Jeweler) , Jean-François de Sompsois (Attributed to) , Vigilius Eriksen (After)

On view in: French Drawing Room

About this object

A rectangular hinged box. On the cover is a rectangular miniature of Empress Elizabeth I (Elizaveta Petrovna) of Russia seated at half length. She is wearing a blue sash probably of the order of Saint Andrew and holding a closed fan in her right hand. A column and a piece of drapery are in the background. The miniature is framed by a narrow tooled gold band and another in black enamel. The top of the lid, the upper part of the sides and the bottom of the box are edged by a band of gold palmettes in overlapping crescents on a black ground, outlined in light blue enamel. The sides and the bottom are covered with a criss-cross pattern with rosettes in tooled gold.

Object name:

SNUFFBOX WITH MINIATURE OF EMPRESS ELIZABETH I

Made from:

Gold -- enamel -- miniature

Made in:

Paris, France

Date made:

mid 18th-early 19th Century

Size:

3 3/16 × 3 3/4 in. (8.1 × 9.5 cm)

Detailed information for this item

Catalog number:

11.29

Signature marks:

MARK a set of English import marks dating 1904; a second set of marks is French, including: A baby's face on a roundel with a 2 to the right (indicating second fineness of gold content, 1797); A cockerel's head facing right (guarantee for lowest gold content (750), 1809-1819); A lozenge-shaped mark with the initials E L/B (the maker's mark of Etienne-Lucien Blerzy (registered 1801-1802) INSCRIPTION Presented by the Empress Elizabeth Petrovna to the Chancellor Count Michael Vorontsov [Inside cover in Russian]

Credit line:

Bequest of Marjorie Merriweather Post, 1973