It didn’t just boost the statistics in terms of lots sold either, financially the sale was given a huge boost by the 18th century snuffbox pictured left which sold for no less than £700,000, a contribution not far short of half the entire £1.6m total. The box, which is composed of 154 numbered specimens of hardstones from the Saxon mines set in a gold cage mount, was made by Christian Gottlieb Stiehl, the Saxon court gemcarver. It contained a secret compartment which holds a booklet giving the key to the stone specifications, a feature unique to this maker.
In 1997 Sotheby’s sold an oval box by this maker in their Geneva rooms for SFr550,000 (£237,100). The price achieved at Christie’s this month is well in excess of that figure and of the previous auction high for a Saxon snuffbox – the £280,000 paid at Christie’s in November 2000 for an octagonal box inlaid with hardstone specimens by Stiehl’s younger Dresden counterpart, Johann Christian Neubar.
At £700,000, it’s nothing to sniff at…
While Sotheby’s incorporated their best objects of vertu into their silver sale on November 20, Christie’s offered theirs in tandem with portrait miniatures in a 264-lot sale the following month on December 9. The vertu side of the sale performed particularly well, with hardly any failures, most of the 55 unsold lots coming from the miniatures.
