Snuff box

The Militaria auction at Norfolk saleroom TW Gaze on April 18 includes an item linked to Napoleon’s exile on St Helena.

A French three-colour gold snuff box was a highlight of the silver and vertu section of Lawrences (25% buyer’s premium) of Crewkerne’s recent winter sale.

A recent Devin Moisan (25% buyer’s premium) sale was topped by a 1974 Chinese snuff bottle decorated by Wang-Hsi (Xisan).

Trio of collections is offered in Perth auction with estimates pitched to entice bidders

Eye-catching bijouterie attracted international buyers to Olympia Auctions’ (25% buyer’s premium) 320-lot European Works of Art sale.

A single-owner collection of 42 gold boxes and objects of vertu from the estate of a Kansas City collector is to be offered by Hindman on October 18.

Collections relating to leading British film director Lewis Gilbert (1920-2018) and his wife of 53 years Hylda (d.2005) provided very different lots for Billingshurst auction house Bellmans (22% buyer’s premium).

Brass and steel ‘combination’ or ‘puzzle’ boxes enjoyed a vogue in the late 18th and 19th centuries.

A group of antique snuff boxes has been recovered after a theft more than 40 years ago.

Along with its Summer Fine Art sale, Tennants held a jewellery, watches and silver sale on July 17.

A silver sale at Woolley & Wallis (25/12% buyer’s premium) this summer included a selection of 24 snuff boxes from the Lion collection – as published in 'British Silver Boxes 1640-1840, The Lion Collection' (2015).

A snuff box believed to have been gifted by Lord Nelson to his personal secretary during a dinner party attended by Emma Hamilton has been sold by Paul Fraser Collectables for £45,000.

This George III silver table snuff box by Phipps and Robinson, London 1814, is engraved to the cover with a plan of the battle of Talavera in the Peninsular War.

Georg Siegmund Stobwasser (1717-76) and his son Johann Heinrich (1740-1829) were among many craftsmen who moved to Brunswick during the Seven Years’ War.

Lots of souvenirs were produced referencing the Battle of Culloden on April 16, 1746 – the final confrontation of the Jacobite rising of 1745 and the last pitched battle fought on British soil.

Economic stimulus packages are not a new phenomenon. Georg Siegmund Stobwasser (1717-76) was among the many craftsmen attracted to the Brunswick by the special privileges granted them in the city by Duke Karl I (1713-80) in the wake of the Seven Years’ War.

MADAM – I am writing a book on the origins and makers of coquilla nut snuff boxes, a time-consuming and difficult task ideally suited to these trying times.