Biographical details of the enamel painter Antoine Carteret are scant. He was born in Geneva in 1766, the son of Jean Gideon, natif, marchand de soie, and Anne Jacqueline Vernion/Vergnon. It may be presumed that he was trained in his native city and worked there for some years. On 18 pluvoise an 10 (7 February 1802) he is recorded in Mainz (Mayence, Département du Mont Tonnerre) as peintre en miniature on the occasion of his marriage to Louise Françoise Antoinette Koenig, daughter of the late François Joseph Koenig, Conseiller intime de l’Electeur ci-devant de Mayence (personal councillor to the former Elector of Mayence). At some stage he settled in Hanau where he continued as a decorator of snuffboxes. On occasion he collaborated with another enamel painter, Johan Daniel Berneaud, and in such instances the work was signed with their initials – CB or C&B.

The enamel painting on this snuffbox is exemplary of Carteret’s early style, which is distinguished by a lightness of touch that gives vibrancy to the representation. The compositions are derived from engravings after Claude Joseph Vernet (1714–1789), the lid with Les amans à la pêche, the base with Le matin. The effect of a sun-infused seascape is achieved by painting the sky in translucent enamel, allowing the concentric engine-turned ground to shimmer from below. Such was Carteret’s skill that he could achieve a similar glow when working only in opaque enamels, as may be seen in the plaque mounted on a box by Louis Guillaume Hestermann, cat. no. 361. In Hanau in the new century Carteret’s style changed, his early delight in capturing ephemeral effects of light and atmosphere succeeded by a preference for rendering form in bold blocks of colour.

For a discussion about the maker’s mark FF and a biography of François Flaissière.

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