Snuff box, silver-gilt by Simon Gribelin, Great Britain, 1700

A silver-gilt box for small toiletries, the top engraved with scenes from the Toilet of Venus with French inscriptions, personalized with a Baron's coronet and entwined initials and signed by Simon Gribelin, who preserved copies of the engraving in an album which he compiled in 1722 now in the British Museum.

The maker of the box is not recorded, but Simon Gribelin was a Huguenot refugee engraver from Blois, France, who settled in London in 1681. The box was part of the collection of silver bequeathed to the V&A by Claude Rotch in 1961 Oval box, the hinged lid engraved in the centre with a cypher surmounted by a baron's coronet flanked by four scenes from classical mythology with appropriate inscriptions in French. Above is the reclining figure of Venus in her chariot drawn by dove with above Cupid shooting arrows from a bow with the inscription 'QUI PEUT LUY RESISTER'; to the left is the Judgement of Paris with the inscription 'A LA PLUS BELLE'; to the right the Three Graces attending Venus who is admiring herself in a mirror with the inscription 'SEULLES DIGNES DE LA SERVIR' and below Cupid led by a dog on a lead with the inscription 'LA FIDELITE ME CONDUIT' signed on either side 'SIM GRIB'.

The gilded surface is very worn revealing the silver beneath.