"MC" (Mathieu Coiny III., Paris), 89 x 46 x 39 mm, 146 g, circa 1765

Important French Louis XV gold enamel snuff box "La Muse Clio" after an engraving by Jean Daullé (1703-1763) after the François Boucher painting "La Muse Clio"
Case: 22K gold, master’s mark "MC" (Mathieu Coiny III.), charge mark Jean-Jaques Prévost (1762-1768), mark of the Paris guild "B" for 1765-1766.
Oval case, lid, sides and base decorated with translucent green enamelling on "basse taille" flowers and tendrils, chased gold ribbons and geometric patterns. In the centre of the lid is a Iandscape oval enamel medallion in a frame of gold bows and laurel: the muse Clio with a putto, "en grisaille" against a pink-coloured background; after an engraving by Jean Daullé (1703-1763) after the François Boucher painting "La Muse Clio".

Mathieu Coiny was the third generation of a family of goldsmiths. He was born in 1723 and became a master in 1755 – his father, a goldsmith in Versailles, was his sponsor. Coiny lived at the Pont Notre-Dame in Paris until about 1782, when he moved to the Rue de l'Arbre Sec. His two brothers Joseph-Urbain and Jacques-Toussaint were jewellers and goldsmiths. In 1767 he was appointed "Bijoutier ordinaire des Princes" and in 1771-1772 he was e member of the board in his guild.
Today the work of Mathieu Coiny is kept in several important museums and collections such as the Wallace Collection, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Louvre in Paris.