This box is composed of small plaques of Meissen porcelain painted in orange camaïeu with putti at play on a dark blue ground, held within an airy gold cagework on a carnelian ground. The sides are edged with a key pattern border enclosing white porcelain plaques painted in colours with flower garlands. As a surprise, very typical of Johann Christian Neuber, the base contains a secret compartment, now empty, but with space for a portrait miniature. This is revealed upon pressing a small push piece that sets off the spring mechanism. As far as the exterior decoration goes, it is one of three similar boxes, certainly made in Dresden around 1765, and attributed to the early years of the celebrated court goldsmith.

The second box of the three, from the Allègre and Rothschild collections, was described in the nineteenth century as ‘boîte ovale en or – plaques Saxe dans un treillis du jardin en or Neuberg de Dresde’. The Meissen panels are painted in polychrome with small figures enjoying themselves in the garden formed by gold cagework set against a green ground.

The third box, whose current whereabouts is unknown, was also attributed to ‘Neuberg’ by Alphonse Maze-Sencier. It is circular, the sides and base being inlaid with polychrome Meissen plaques on a carnelian ground, within a garden trellis. The lid is inset with the cipher of Stanislaus August (1732–1798), who ruled as King of Poland from 1764 to 1795, and the box was accompanied by a letter of presentation from the king to a Thomas Greathe dated 9 October 1776. The cipher is enclosed within coloured gold ajouré flowers which link this box to another early cagework box, set with moss agate cabochons, which is actually signed by Neuber on the interior.

A fourth box, in the Musée du Louvre, Paris, also unmarked and probably made in Dresden but not from the Neuber workshops, is set with rectangular plaques of Meissen porcelain again painted with arcades and garlands of flowers (illustrated below left). It is overlaid by gold cagework richly chased with Le Fleuve Scamandre, after an engraving of 1742 by Nicolas de Larmessin III (1685–1755), from a painting by François Boucher (1703–1770).

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