The snuffbox is inset with two pressed paper cameos: on the lid the Triumph of Cupid and Psyche, signed in Greek ‘Anteros’, and on the base a chariot race in the Circus Maximus, Rome. Paper cameos of this type have been traditionally attributed to Empress Maria Fyodorovna (1759–1828), consort of Emperor Paul I (1754–1801). The empress, encouraged by her mother-in-law Empress Catherine II (1729–1796), studied the art of cameo carving with the engraver Carl Leberecht (1755–1827) and with Georg Heinrich König (1756?–after 1824), who taught her the techniques of preparing glass paste for copying cameos. Diomedes and Odysseus, by Francesco Bartolozzi, after Giovanni Battista Cipriani, 1785, etching. These paper cameos may be compared with a series set in an eleven-piece parure made by the Duval brothers, which formed part of the dowry of the empress’s eldest daughter Grand Duchess Alexandra Pavlovna (1783–1801) when she married Archduke Joseph of Austria, Palatine of Hungary (1776–1847) in 1799. When working on her cameos it is most likely that Maria Fyodorovna referred to the complete set of gem impressions made by James Tassie that was acquired by Catherine II in 1781. The chariot race, for example, may have been based on a Tassie gem taken from a rock crystal intaglio then in the collection of the King of Naples. The engraved diaper pattern decorating this box is a subtle elaboration of a simpler motif used by the Théremin brothers on a cut-cornered box made the previous year.³ Here, the rounded corners have been defined with burnished divisions engraved with laurel, an enrichment of the unbroken diaper pattern on the earlier box.

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