Mastery of Design: The Gilbert Snuffbox, 1750-1900

This and all related images from The Victoria & Albert Museum

A rectangular gold snuffbox with plain bombe walls and a plain base--the cover is set with a hard-paste porcelain plaque which has been painted on the outside with a scene of two shepherdesses and a shepherd in a landscape, and on the inside with the “Bath of Venus,” within a reeded border. The scrolling floral thumb-piece is set with rubies, emeralds and diamonds.


Though a work of brilliantly simple elegance, it’s the very simplicity of the goldsmith's work which makes assigning a date of creation to this snuffbox quite difficult. As with most pieces like these, we turn to the gems to tell us the date of creation. The cut and setting of the stones in the thumb-piece suggest that the snuffbox was made in the second half of the 19th century.

Dating the box is further complicated by the porcelain plaque. This was produced at Meissen around 1750. Clearly, the box was created as a setting for the porcelain