Mid-19Thc Papier-Mâché Snuff Box Painted With A Sheepdog C.1840

The charming circular papier-mâché snuff box, having a removable lid beautifully hand-painted with the head of a black and white sheepdog, being an early collie type, the animal depicted in three-quarter profile against the wonderfully dark background, its alert amber eye, long muzzle and characteristically pricked ears sensitively observed to a narrow gilt-painted border, the whole with a black lacquer finish and surviving from the second quarter of nineteenth century England.

The box survives in evocative untouched condition, with age-related craquelure to the painted surface, scattered scratches and rubbing, losses to the gilt border and small areas of wear and loss around the extremities. The black lacquered body has further minor knocks and surface wear commensurate with some one hundred and eighty years of handling and use. Importantly, the portrait retains tremendous character and the accumulated wear only adds to its appealingly timeworn appearance.

Papier-mâché became an important material for the manufacture of snuff boxes and small personal objects during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, its compressed construction providing a remarkably hard surface capable of receiving numerous coats of lacquer and extremely detailed painted decoration. Circular detachable-lid examples of closely comparable construction are recorded during the 1820–50 period. Animal subjects were particularly appropriate for these intimate objects, and surviving boxes range from sporting dogs to individual canine portraits; notably, the National Gallery of Victoria holds an early nineteenth century English papier-mâché snuff box painted by Samuel Raven with a specifically identified owner’s dog.

A lovely piece of early Victorian folk and sporting art: at once a functional snuff box and a remarkably personal little animal portrait elevating it well beyond the more commonly encountered decorative papier-mâché boxes of the period.