The miniatures inset in this show the different types of en camaïeu painting executed by Jacques Joseph de Gault. Here the artist paints the cameo in translucent grey washes with opaque white highlights, using the creamy colour of the ivory ground as the mid tone. The composition is outlined by a background of slate-grey bodycolour, on which de Gault scratched his signature. Touches of opaque white bodycolour are applied to suggest light catching the carved highlights. In appearance this resembles the glass sulphides, otherwise known as cameo incrustations, that were first made at this date.

The treatment of the side panels as frieze with generously spaced gesticulating figures silhouetted against a dark ground may be compared with those painted by de Gault at the same date that formed part of the decoration of the jewel cabinet of Queen Marie Antoinette by Jean Ferdinand Schwerdfeger (1734–1818).

Vachette may have been introduced to de Gault by Pierre François Drais, his sponsor when he became a master in 1779. On a number of occasions from the late 1760s Drais used de Gault’s en camaïeu miniatures in his work: These miniatures were almost invariably oval, following the classic cameo form. In the early 1780s de Gault widened his repertoire, painting oblong and rectangular shaped panels in themed sets, such as seen on the present snuffbox. Given the number of such sets mounted by Vachette, it is conceivable that the goldsmith encouraged this change of format. Both goldsmith and painter needed to honour the fashionable demand for novelty.

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