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Source Description
Kings and Queens would often present small gold boxes to ambassadors as diplomatic gifts and to courtiers as payment for services. Made of a variety of precious materials – including gold, enamel, semiprecious stones, lacquer, and tortoiseshell – and designed for a variety of uses – ranging from storing snuff to confections - valuable boxes were coveted and enthusiastically collected. Displaying one’s collection of prized boxes or stylishly retrieving one from a pocket were important social rituals; these objects revealed a person’s tastes, interests, and erudition. It is likely that this box was designed to be a bonboninere, or box for sweets.
Scholar Source Context
Document identity
localId
2742
label
Bonbonnière
core
obj
dtoType
object
citationUrl
pageCount
1
Source metadata
id
2742
sourceUrl
contentType
object
stage
normalized
title
Bonbonnière
description
Kings and Queens would often present small gold boxes to ambassadors as diplomatic gifts and to courtiers as payment for services. Made of a variety of precious materials – including gold, enamel, semiprecious stones, lacquer, and tortoiseshell – and designed for a variety of uses – ranging from storing snuff to confections - valuable boxes were coveted and enthusiastically collected. Displaying one’s collection of prized boxes or stylishly retrieving one from a pocket were important social rituals; these objects revealed a person’s tastes, interests, and erudition. It is likely that this box was designed to be a bonboninere, or box for sweets.
provenance
Acquired by Henry Walters, Baltimore (date and mode unknown); by bequest to Walters Art Museum, 1931.
date
1785
citationUrl
rightsUri
CC0
language
en
genreSpecific
comfit boxes
bonbonnieres
imageCount
1
pageCount
1
source
import
dimensions
units
cm
width
2.5
height
7.5
dimensionsRaw
H: 1 x Diam: 2 15/16 in. (2.5 x 7.5 cm)
Source extras
inscriptions
[Maker’s Mark] on interior side
lid and base and exterior bezel
indicating the work of Claude-Pierre Pottier: crowned fleur de lis
flanked by two grains de remède above Maltese cross with PPC; [Mark of Assayer] on the interior side
lid
and basses and exterior bezel
indicating Henry Clavel II and Jean-Francois Kalendrin: two entwined Ls; [Mark of Warden] on the interior side
lid
and base
indicating the year 1785: script P
crowned and enclosing on the left the incuse figures 85.
med
guilloché gold, enamel, diamond, pearl
creator_ids
3581
collection_ids
EAN
exhibition_ids
none
Single page context
seq
1
pageIndex
0
type
photo
mediaId
272a11ff83fe2e00