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Snuffbox with Voltaire and Rousseau
early 19th century
ivory reliefs on papier-mâché
(18th and 19th Centuries )
(18th and 19th Centuries )
The busts of the celebrated philosophers François-Marie Arouet Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, rendered in ivory, have been applied to the lid of a papier-mâché box tinted to resemble maple wood.
A wooden box in the British Museum with similar portraits is said to commemorate the deaths of the two men, both of whom died in 1778.
Provenance
Provenance (from the French provenir, 'to come from/forth') is the chronology of the ownership, custody, or location of a historical object.
Provenance (from the French provenir, 'to come from/forth') is the chronology of the ownership, custody, or location of a historical object.
William T. / Henry Walters Collection, Baltimore [date of acquisition unknown], by purchase; Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.
Geographies
France (Place of Origin)
Measurements
3/4 x 3 3/4 in. (1.9 x 9.6 cm)
Credit Line
Acquired by William T. or Henry Walters
Location in Museum
Not on view
Accession Number
In libraries, galleries, museums, and archives, an accession number is a unique identifier assigned to each object in the collection.
In libraries, galleries, museums, and archives, an accession number is a unique identifier assigned to each object in the collection.
57.217