Silver rectangular cigarette case, gilded, with rounded sides and corners, consists of two equal halves connected by a hinge, with a snap shutter. The top lid is decorated with a composition executed in the Neo-Russian style with a sketchy title "Capture of a fortress" with a relief image of a warrior on a horseback. He flings a spear in the direction of a fortress that is located on the hill and is a part a of the painted landscape background. An onlayed plate with a carved inscription: "pro memoria // To dear Master // PERLOV // from the branches’ managers // 1907 // honour and labour" (// Дорогому Хозяину // ПЕРЛОВУ // отъ управляющiхъ филиалами // 1907 // честь и трудъ") is on the top lid surface. Onlay facsimile signatures of the granters are on the cigarette case bottom. Various onlay images are on the cigarette case bottom lid: facsimile signatures, monograms, a flag with a red cross, an officer's shoulder strap with the monogram of Emperor Nicolay I, military armor framed by banners. A button lock is decorated with an oval insert of a sapphire-cabochon in a smooth, bezel setting. A cigarette case is enclosed in wooden box.

This cigarette case could belong to Sergei Vasilyevich Perlov (1836-1910) - a collector, patron of art, one of the heirs of the most respectable Moscow tea supplying company "Vasily Perlov and sons". It was supplying tea to four foreign governments. In 1890, S. Perlov separated from the family business and registered his own firm "Tea Trade Partnership, Sergey Vasilyevich and Co". Mainly, he focused on the domestic market. By 1915, more than forty Company branches the company were opened by 1915 in different cities of the Russia. A Tea House building - the only one in Moscow in the Chinese style (1890-1893 I. Klein, 1895-1896 K. Gippius) – was erected by the order of Sergey Perlov by the end of the XIXth century in Myasnitskaya street, near the School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. After the revolution, the Tea House, like most other residential buildings in the center of Moscow, was turned into the so-called shared apartments. Nevertheless, the wide-known Tea-Coffee store survived there. In 1992, the Perlov’s family heritors bought back the right to lease the building with an obligation to restore it. As a result, the building and the shop interior were restored to the original appearance.

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