Box with Lion, and a Dog and Duck

This box is unusual in that it has very fine micromosaic on the top, bottom, and around the sides. Animals are a common subject in this medium. The floral bands around the sides of the box are on a black background, similar to those on the sides of a rectangular box attributed to Gioacchino Barberi (1722-1857) reproduced in Jeanette Hanisee Gabriel's book "Micromosaics: Private Collections" on page 184. Barberi is credited with inventing and developing black as a background to micromosiacs in imitation of ancient paintings at Herculaneum and Pompeii.

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.

Lady Fellows Collection [1]; possibly Col. C.F. Fellows, by inheritance and sold by his executors, Sotheby and Co., London, 18th December 1930, lot 50 [2]. George W. Kosmak (1863-1953) from Percy Webster, Antiquarian Horologist, 37 Great Portland Street, London, 29 June 1931, by purchase; Katherine and George Kosmak, 1953, by bequest; Walters Art Museum, 1975, by gift.

[1] Lent by her to the South Kensington Loan Exhibition, 1862, no. 4,211, p. 334 in revised edition of the catalog, published January 1863. Described as "Circular snuff-box, with fine Italian mosaic work of a lion on the cover, a hound and a duck at bottom, flowers round the side."
[2] Lot 50, "A fine Georgian Mosiac Box, circular, 3 1/4 in., the top with a prowling lion, the sides with flowers, and the bottom with a hound, gold-mounted and lined, in case, 2" Card on file notes that the case was at the museum and also labeled "Lady Fellows"