At this date the painters of enamel plaques frequently referred to prints after Claude Joseph Vernet (1714–1789) as a source of inspiration, sometimes drawing upon a single element for their own compositions. Thus, for example, the fisherman in the centre of the present plaque is taken from L’aqueduc italien, an engraving by Jean Jacques Leveau (1729–1786) published in 1773. Other painted enamel versions of this composition include one mounted on a box by Louis Roucel, 1777–1778, in the Musée Cognacq-Jay, Paris, and another on a box formerly in the collection of Rear Admiral Frederic R. Harris, U.S.N.
Snuffboxes decorated in translucent enamel in a colour range of purple and plum were fashionable in Paris in the early 1780s, colours that were equally favoured for the silks and velvets used in contemporary dress, as may be observed in the portrait of Victoire Pauline de Riquet de Caraman, Vicomtesse de Vaudreuil (1764–1834) by Elisabeth Vigée-Le Brun (1755–1842), painted in 1785.3 Edward Bancroft (1744–1821), in his book Philosophy of Permanent Colours published in 1813, recorded that ‘The best and least fugitive of the purple or violet colours obtained from logwood, are produced by mordants composed of solutions of tin; one of these became very fashionable in France, about thirty years ago, under the name of prune de Monsieur; and being then a resident at Paris, I wore a coat of this colour, without having any reason to complain of it as being fugitive.’

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