The French motto reads: RIEN N’EST AGREABLE ELOIGNEZ DE VOUS [sic], which can be translated as: ‘Nothing is pleasant away from you’. The attribution to James Cox is based on the swagged column ornament seen on the sides of the box matching that on the interior of the middle storey of a cabinet clock in the State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg. Its keys are signed and dated: Jas. Cox, London, 1772.¹ Another example is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, with the same decoration on the top drawer below a watch with dial signed: JAS. COX / LONDON.² The ultra-thin agate for this box has been particularly well selected as the lines in the stone are vertical on the sides and try to match the curve of the lid. German and Russian stonecutters usually tried to do this, but British makers in general appear to have been less meticulous – unless most of the surviving London boxes have replaced panels.

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