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 SMP Silver Salon Forums
 Continental / International Silver
 Mystery Box
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| Author | Topic: Mystery Box |
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Russell Posts: 52 |
posted 11-05-2005 07:13 PM
  
Dear Friends, I have a box that was given to me as a gift many years ago. When I first acquired it, the box was very controversial; perhaps, it still can inspire heated discussion. The inside cover of the lid is inlayed with a silver plate bearing the inscription "A Madame la Marquise de Pompadour Souhaits de fete C de T". "Souhaits de fete" is supposedly an old French expression for "congratulations". Research seems to indicate that C de T was Count le Normant de Tournayhem, Mme Pompadour's mother's lover and her benefactor at the French court. Can the plate bearing the inscription be of Pompadour's period and the box be more recent? There are no marks on the back of the silver plate, nor on the grisaille plaque on the lid. The marks on the box seem to be a boar's head (?) and a diamond with a fleur-de-lis, etc. inside. Can anyone recognize the maker's mark, if that is what the diamond is? The marks are very tiny and this is the best I can do with the photos without a microscope. Any information or input would be much appreciated. Thank you. Russell IP: Logged |
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swarter Moderator Posts: 2920 |
posted 11-05-2005 07:48 PM
Nice box, excellent photos. Good job. IP: Logged |
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FWG Posts: 845 |
posted 11-06-2005 09:48 AM
The hallmark is of course the boar's head mark for the French first standard (.950) of silver on small articles, introduced in 1838. The maker's mark is consistent with that as well; although I don't have resources to identify French makers' marks I believe others here will. The box is lovely, and to my eye at least is consistent with an early-mid 19C dating. Which of course raises the question of the inscription, since the Madame died in 1764. I gather you've had it disassembled, since you refer to the back of the inscription plate; did the parts seem consistent with each other? I have a hard time imagining someone cutting such an inscription from another object to insert into this box. My first inclination would be that it was an old fake inscription, done in the 19C to sell to the hordes seeking souvenirs of the ancien regime. [This message has been edited by FWG (edited 11-06-2005).] IP: Logged |
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Kayvee Posts: 204 |
posted 11-06-2005 11:30 AM
What a charming and attractive box! The marks indicate that it was made after 1838. Those French marks are devilishly difficult to photograph and you have done a great job. Do the maker’s initials look like CB? If so, I believe the maker to be a jeweler Célestin Bousquet who traded at 11 rue du Pressoir from 1867 to 1874. His mark was the initials CB with a branch or spray of boxwood leaves between the initials (looks sort of like a fleur de lys). If on closer inspection you think the initials to be something else, let me know. The guilloché engraving with repoussé dots on the side panels would date it to the 1870’s in my opinion. As for the inscribed plaque, I have several comments. First, I believe the phrase “Souhaits de fête” means happy saint’s day, the name day that is celebrated in France in much the same way that a birthday is celebrated. Is the grisaille and pink piece on top of the box porcelain? Mme de Pompadour was the official patron of the Royal Manufacture of Sèvres. She was such a tastemaker that people followed her lead when she switched from silver hollowware to porcelain. Needless to say, she did not endear herself to the silversmiths who saw their business decline when their clients rushed to buy porcelain services to serve the new exotic beverages of tea, coffee and chocolate. She especially favored pink and the Sèvres pink was called “rose de Pompadour.” Who is the mysterious C de T? Does your research lead you to believe that Charles-François Lenormant de Tournehem, Mme de Pompadour’s guardian, her father’s business associate, and her mother’s lover, was a member of the nobility? I know he was a member of the privileged classes, but a bourgeois by origin, as was Pompadour. He was a member of the order of Fermiers Généraux, a company of 40-60 financiers that had been granted the right to collect all direct and indirect taxes for the Crown and to manage royal monopolies, taking a percentage for their troubles and becoming very rich in the process. How would Lenormant de Tournehem have signed his initials? I believe that it would be L de T because Lenormant was part of his last name. If he had been ennobled under the influence of Pompadour or earlier, I don’t believe the C would have stood for Count, as this is usually abbreviated Cte, with the te in superscript. However, L de T’s given name was Charles, so C de T fits, if he used only part of his last name. Pompadour was given the title of Marquise in 1744, L de T died in 1751, so if he commissioned the plaque it would have been between 1744 and 1751. I haven’t seen enough 18th C engraving from this period to have a sense if the style on your box looks appropriate. It has been fun to speculate on the origin of your box. My gut tells me that it was made as a reproduction piece and that the inscribed plaque is contemporary to the box, but it would be wonderful to learn otherwise. The Wallace Collection, the Louvre and the French Musée National de Céramique all hold many pieces of Pompadour’s Sèvres porcelain in their collections. Perhaps you could contact these museums to see if they have come across such a box that was later reproduced. IP: Logged |
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Russell Posts: 52 |
posted 11-06-2005 02:58 PM
Dear Friends, Thank you for your responses! When I posted the text and photos of the box, I did not know how much room I had, so I left out some facts that are included here. The lid was disassembled about 30 years ago, and we examined the plaque and the inscribed plate. I was hoping the plaque could bear a Sevres mark, but there was no mark of any kind, there was no mark on the back of the inscribed plate, and there was no love note sandwiched between the plate and the plaque. Upon closer examination (eye strain!), I believe Kayvee is correct - now that I am looking for a C and a B - I see them. The "fleur de lis" more or less looked like one (I thought it may have been damaged - nicked or dented), so it can very well be a sprig of leaves. These marks are tiny! The box did make a trip to the Louvre about 30 years ago. The two curators who examined it could not agree on the plaque or the inscribed plate. In the mid 18th century, ceramics factories like Sevres, Meissen and Doccia (to name a few) were experimenting with soft paste and trying to make hard paste (porcelain). Their experiments produced many unusual "wares" that were not soft paste yet not truly hard paste, until the secret of porcelain, kaolin clay, was discovered. The plaque "may" be of that intermediate period. King Louis was greatly saddened by the death of Mme Pompadour and had all of her possessions catalogued and put into storage. The inventory book of her possessions was partly burned during the French Revolution and the half of the book that survived makes no mention of this item. The inside of the box is unusual; it is divided into two compartments, an upper and a lower. The top section is about 1/3 the depth of the box and was divided into three parts by metal (silver?) partions which are now lost; all that remains are traces of solder. The bottom section, the "secret compartment", is accessible from the bottom plate. The box is 50mm h, 48mm w, 63mm l or about 1 7/8 inches h, 1 7/8 inches w, 2 3/8 inches long. Thanks loads, I really appreciate your input on this box. You answered a lot of questions and presented some new ones - to me, that's a big part of what collecting is all about. Russell IP: Logged |
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