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Bonbon Box with Coaching Scene
(18th and 19th Centuries )
The luxury French jewelry firm, Boucheron designed this bejeweled box in the style of an 18th-century snuffbox. In all likelihood, nobody ever used this box for taking snuff; instead, a collector would have displayed and treasured it as a tour de force in technique and style. On the lid, a hunter, accompanied by his two dashing hounds, watches an elegant carriage pulled by four graceful horses. Boucheron’s goldsmiths encrusted the figures with diamonds and mounted them on a rock crystal background. Beneath the crystal, lie a painted gold base with multiple shallow reliefs. This combination of layered materials imparts a distinctive blue, moonlight quality to the background and accentuates the diamonds’ brilliance. Frederic Boucheron founded the House of Boucheron in 1858 and opened his first store in Paris’s Palais-Royal. He rose to fame by winning a gold medal during the Exposition Universelle, the 1867 world’s fair held in Paris.
Inscription
Provenance
Provenance (from the French provenir, 'to come from/forth') is the chronology of the ownership, custody, or location of a historical object. Learn more about provenance at the Walters.
Henry Walters, Baltimore, 1927, by purchase; Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.
Exhibitions
| 1984 | Objects of Vertu: Precious Works of the Eighteenth Century. The Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore. |
| 1971-1972 | World of Wonder. The Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore. |
Geographies
France, Paris (Place of Origin)
Measurements
H: 2 5/8 × W: 3 7/8 × D: 1 7/16 in. (6.7 × 9.9 × 3.6 cm)
Credit Line
Acquired by Henry Walters, 1927
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.
57.87