90th Auction

2014/11/15

Lot 177

Presumably Jean-Baptiste Carnay, Paris, 72 x 23 mm, circa 1783
A very fine circular Bonbonniére with double-sided miniature portraits
Case: 18K gold, case maker's punch mark "JB(C?)" with a crown (presumably Jean-Baptiste Carnay), later gold punch mark Paris 1838-1846, charge mark crossed double "L": Henri Clavel (1781-1783), Parisian guild punch mark "U" of 1783.
Circular box, the independent cover inset with a glazed Biedermeier miniature of Mr. Hobbit facing right in blue coat and the base with a lady facing left wearing a blue dress and two strings of pearls. The sides enamelled in translucent green with golden stars on an engine-turned ground between a border of translucent green enamelled foliage and opalescent white and pinkish enamel pearls.
Jean-Baptiste Carnay
J.B. Carnay started his apprenticeship with Jean-Gabriel Agard in 1747 and completed it with Louis-Claude Godin after Agard died in 1750. Carnay became master in March 1764; his sponsor was Pierre-Genest Leguerinière. The records list Carnay as a jeweller and maker with a diamond crown as his mark, working at the Quai de l’Horloge and the Quai des Morfondus until 1793. He put out two announcements about objects that went missing from his workshop; one was a cane with a gold handle and the other a chased gold bracelet with a portrait. The pieces by Carnay that still exist seem to be mostly worked in coloured gold; however, a gold and enamel snuff box held by the Metropolitan Museum is shown as illustration no. 127 in Clare Le Corbeiller’s "European and American Snuff Boxes 1730-1830", London, 1966.

estimated
28.00035.000 €
Price realized
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