In a letter addressed to Giacomo Raffaelli dated 16 May 1811, the Bohemian-born artist Johann Wenzel Peter (1745–1829) almost certainly refers to the present composition: ‘The first was the fox with a pheasant … at the price of 28 scudi’. Evidently Raffaelli had visited Peter’s studio sometime beforehand and the artist wished to know whether Raffaelli intended to buy this and other works to use as a source for his micromosaics – Peter was concerned about his work ‘falling into the hands of other mosaicists’. Peter’s paintings of animal subjects were admired and collected by both the Roman nobility and visiting tourists, so in replicating his compositions mosaicists were being commercially astute. The lid of this snuffbox was most probably inset originally with a portrait miniature that was removed subsequently and replaced by the present micromosaic. The inscription on the copper support of the micromosaic – added later to give greater prestige to the work – appears to have been drilled rather than engraved with a burin, the technique to be expected.

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