Snuffbox, porcelain, Meissen and Dresden, 1750

The portraits inside this box are of Carl Theodore (1724-99), a member of the Bavarian royal family, and his wife Elizabeth Auguste (1721-94). Theodore held the high office of Elector, which gave him the power, as part of an electoral college, to choose the Holy Roman Emperor.

The porcelain of this box was produced there, whilst the mounts were made in Dresden. Rectangular triple snuffbox of hard-paste porcelain painted in enamels, with plain gold mounts. The cover, enclosing a split interior, is divided in half and decorated with Mars and Minerva in wooded landscapes within Rococo cartouche of pink and yellow on a blue osier ground; the interior of the lid is painted with portraits of Carl Theodore, the Elector Palatine, in armour, wearing the sash of the Order if St. Hubert, and his wife Elisabeth Auguste, attributed to Johann Martin Heinrici, each shown half length and facing three quarters in towards each other.

The hinged base is painted on the outside with Pan pursuing Syrinx, watched by the river god Ladon, somewhat ambiguously depicted, within a scrolling cartouche against a blue osier background; on the interior Europa and the bull are escorted by tritons and nereids with Jupiter as an eagle in the sky. The walls are painted with similar cartouches, also bordered by a blue osier ground, enclosing studies of Leda and the swan, Venus and Cupid, Diana the Huntress, and Venus borne along by dolphins. The box has two scrolling thumbpieces.

S. J. Phillips, London..