The design of this snuffbox is very similar to another retailed by Maurice Mayer, formerly in the collection of the Princes de Wagram. The lid of the Wagram box is centred with the initial N below a crown, for Napoleon III, Emperor of the French. Like the present box, the retailer’s name and address are engraved on the rim, together with the number 2361 and a stamped number 125. Although not certain, it is likely that the engraved number was a stock reference of the firm and the stamped number an imperial household inventory reference. Similar stamped numbers are to be found on other Napoleon III presentation boxes: 279 on a box by Louis François Tronquoy and 25 on a box by Alexandre Raoul Morel that was retailed by Maurice Mayer. It may be presumed that this box was once set with the crowned cipher of Napoleon III. After the fall of the Second Empire in 1870 and the emperor’s death less than three years later, there was no doubt a stock of unused imperial presentation boxes. Evidently firms such as R. & S. Garrard & Co. acquired examples that could be adapted for use by the British monarch. The present box is set with the cipher of Queen Victoria after she became Empress of India in 1877. The design of the cipher corresponds with that of the Order of the Crown of India, which was established in 1878. The form of the crown above does not compare with that typically used for the kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and may therefore be the jeweller’s speculative design for a crown of India, one that references the crown of another empire, imperial Russia. The Imperial Crown of India became a physical reality when Garrard & Co. Ltd created the crown worn by George V at the Delhi Durbar of 1911. Set with 6,170 diamonds and weighing 920 grams, the king wrote after the event that he was ‘Rather tired after wearing my crown for 3½ hours; it hurt my head, as it is pretty heavy’.

minimize...