Snuffbox

A prismatic box with wavy sides and edges, rounded and cut corners. The cover depicts Venus with two putti, sitting beside a wall fountain, on the side of a pool in an arcadian hall. The bottom of the box shows a parapet with a vase, in curved frame of flowers to the left the sun appears, rising out of the sea. The same frame embraces two putti on the front. The figures are made of white agate, while the elements of the background are of embedded almandine, azurite, malachite, red jasper and mother-of-pearl. The shape and the elaborate decoration suggest that the box was made in France, in the 1740ies, because the wavy sides and rounded corners described above were especially in fashion at the time.