As I pointed out yesterday, snuffboxes of porcelain are quite rare in England since British makers preferred gold and hardstone as materials for this purpose. However, in France, porcelain snuffboxes were more frequently made. Here’s one that’s quite exceptional.
Here we see a gold-mounted soft-paste porcelain box in the shape of an egg. It has been painted in enamel—red and white on a pale blue ground--with borders of flower garlands, and rosettes at the top and bottom. The box has been fitted with gold mounts which are chased with a Greek key pattern beneath guilloché.
The work of Sèvres Porcelain Factory, this is only one of a few egg-shaped snuffboxes ever made in France in the Eighteenth Century. The curators at the V&A believe, after studying the gold marks, that the box was exported to England between 1764-5 or 1781-9, and accompanying records indicate that it was a special commission for an English customer of the Sèvres factory.
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