The identity of the goldsmiths who used the maker’s mark M&P was a mystery which greatly frustrated the late Charles Truman as it has not so far been possible to give them a name or even a place of origin. There is no lack of examples: five boxes in the Musée du Louvre, Paris, one in the Gilbert Collection, London, one in the Wallace Collection, London, and many in other distinguished public and private collections. It is evident that the firm was in existence from about 1765 until the late 1780s and that it used at least three different versions of the mark.

From the evidence of the boxes themselves, they should have been produced in Geneva rather than Hanau. None is recorded as having the Hanau 18 and 19 carat marks in use at the time and quite a few of the boxes incorporate Geneva watches or automata, although as Truman points out, these could readily be acquired. Unfortunately there does not appear to have been any prominent firm of bijoutiers or monteurs de boîtes active in Geneva at the relevant period with these associated initials. Neither Hanau nor Berlin seems to provide any obvious candidates, and a study of the Frankfurt and Leipzig Mess Schema has proved equally unhelpful. Certainly the answer will one day be known; after all, if the whole gold box production of Hanau could have vanished from general knowledge for over a hundred years, it is not surprising that a few individual firms, perhaps located in thus far unidentified towns, remain hidden to us for the moment.

The reserves of the frames surrounding the oval and round vignettes are of millefiori glass. Examples of the use of this form of decoration are rare but include a box of similar style and date, struck with the maker’s mark B&M, in the Victoria & Albert Museum, London. It appears again on a later Geneva box with the maker’s mark of Rémond, Lamy & Cie (1801–1804).

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