Snuffbox with Calendar Clock and Music Box

Originating in the Americas, the practice of “taking snuff,” or inhaling pulverized tobacco through the nose, became a common European custom by the 17th century. Consumers of all social levels and of both sexes would carry small, airtight boxes filled with the powdered tobacco, taking a pinch whenever they needed. Over time, however, society’s elites began to purchase and commission increasingly extravagant and precious boxes. Kings and Queens would often present snuffboxes to ambassadors as diplomatic gifts and to courtiers as payment for services. Made of a variety of precious materials, including gold, enamel, semiprecious stones, lacquer, and tortoiseshell, snuffboxes were coveted and enthusiastically collected. Displaying one’s collection of prized snuffboxes or stylishly retrieving an elegant box from one’s pocket were important social rituals; these objects revealed a person’s tastes, interests, and erudition.

This is a particularly elaborate snuffbox: it features a compartment for snuff, a calendar watch, and a music box. It is a fine example of the work of the firm Guidon, Gide & Blondet. This firm specialized in painted enamel and their produced are often decorated with half-pearls.To the left of the central compartment, which features a relief of musical instruments, is the mechanized music box that, when open, reveals a man pumping water, a girl filling a cup, and a woman calling her chickens. One arm on each of the figures moves back and forth to animate the scene. Such automaton were a specialism of goldsmiths in Geneva. To the right of the central snuff compartment, is a clock with four dials: the largest dial, at bottom, shows the hour of the day, above that to the left is a dial showing the days of the week, to the right of that one showing the day of the month, and at the top the smallest dial tracks seconds.

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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 [date and mode of acquisition unknown]; Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.