A VERY interesting item, this! Look at the painting on the cover of this 1700s snuff box. You find there a plethora of objects, symbols, and yet it's not clear to us all these 200+ years later what story they tell. I see a pair of lovebirds or doves cooing to one another amidst items in disarray. perhaps it heralds the end of a war, or represents love in the midst of war? You see a cage on fire, a sword hanging with a red bow, a tipped over torch and scabbard of arrows lying with a hat and tambourine. There's a shield on a chair or sleigh, I see a document tube there, too, the type that would have carried maps or war documents, perhaps? What does it all mean? Is it love in war time? Is it the war of a love being destroyed? We will never know, but the original giver, who commission or painted the scene surely knew and knew it would be accurately read by the person who was to receive it. Don't you wish these objects would tell us the stories to which they were a party? I think this one will talk of the French Revolution and of love torn from within the ravages of that time in France. Isn't it spectacular!
Very good to excellent condition for age and type, the 200+ year old hand painted snuff box tells a story we are ill-prepared to decipher, but which is interesting just the same. Likely a painting of French Revolution era disruption, and of love amid the chaos, it surely meant something to the original giver and recipient. The old layered paint and varnish surface (Vernis Martin) has the typical crazing associated with the manner of decorative surface treatment, and has just one small nick there beside the shield and otherwise no damage. The box is beautifully decorated, paint on a box of lathe turned wood, it hasn't warped and both top and bottom fit together smoothly even now. Some chips in the surface paint around the perimeter of the lid, some on bottom at outer perimeter, as well. No chips to the box and no cracks or restorations - just age and a beautiful old treasure of intrigue.
