The subject is that of Pygmalion who, according to Ovid, fell so much in love with the statue he had carved of Venus that the goddess took pity and brought the statue to life. Although the lid gives the impression of being painted en grisaille, the painting has been enhanced in very light pastel colours to breathe warmth into the composition. The work would appear to be a tribute to the Berlin tradition of en grisaille painting. Jean Abraham Lissignol (1749–1819) was a pupil and later partner of Jean Marc Roux. From 1793 until 1797 he was head of the school of drawing at the Département des arts in Geneva. Writing in 1876, Jean Jacques Rigaud observed that Lissignol painted ‘good and agreeable portraits, some of which are very small’. According to Hans Boeckh, Lissignol, following the social and economic changes after the French occupation of Geneva, changed from his earlier specialisation of portraiture – which was dependent upon the patronage of a willing elite – to working for the Fabrique. One of the three snuffboxes that Rémond sent to Paris for an exhibition and concours initiated by Emperor Napoleon in 1806 was ‘A gentleman’s octagonal snuffbox, enamelled with the fabric pattern in lilac and black, the top painted en plein [by Lissignol], the subject the Separation of Aeneas and Dido, surrounded by a frame of real pearls, the base with a chased frame’.

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