Page 247 - Bonhams Catalog Cohen and Cohen Jan 24, 2023 New York

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A GILT-METAL-MOUNTED FAMILLE ROSE CIRCULAR BOMBE a variety of different materials for use in mixed company, but boxes
SNUFF BOX AND COVER with erotic motifs would probably have been reserved for use only in
Qianlong period, circa 1740 male company for the entertainment of friends. A cargo list for three
the very slightly domed cover painted with a semi-recumbent Portuguese ships arriving in Lisbon in 1756, recorded 842 enameled
Western lady wearing a blue fur-lined night gown that displays ample copper (i.e., ‘Canton enamel’ rather than rarer and more fragile
decolletage, in an interior with a curtain pulled to one side and with porcelain) tobacco boxes and snuff boxes from China.
objects on a table behind her, the bombe sides of the box with
alternate large and small grisaille and iron red and puce landscape
vignette panels, the base entirely painted in puce with a lakeside or
river coastline, the interior of the hinged cover painted with a naked
couple in embrace on a blanket set on a grassy bank before a single
tree and two flowering bushes, perhaps roses, the box interior gilt.
2 15/16in (7.7cm) across
$3,500 - 5,500

乾隆時期 約1740年 鎏金嵌裝粉彩鼻烟圓盒
The taking of ‘snuff’ (ground imported tobacco, which stimulated
the senses in the manner of nicotine in cigarettes) was a widely
accepted social practice in 18th century European polite society. The
correct manner of offering, accepting and inhaling a ‘pinch of snuff’
was standardized at least as early as 1734. By 1781 Jean Sebastian
Mercier wrote that ‘a well-dressed man should have a different
snuffbox for every day of the year’. There were many varieties of
boxes with standard types of attractive decoration, constructed from
(base detail)

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