7 cm × Depth: 5 cm × Height: 3.5 cm / Form Number: 66 (after Beaucamp-Markowsky) / Meissen, circa 1740 / Gilded silver mount / Painted probably by Johann George Heintze
The exterior of the snuff box is decorated with the exceptionally rare black ground. The painter etched the outlines for the applied floral branches in black and gold, while the finely executed interior scene is painted in sepia brown.
The interior scene follows an engraving by Nicolas de Larmessin from 1736 (Wildenstein, p. 650 f.), based on the painting Les Amours du Bocage by Nicolas Lancret (Catalogue "Gefährliche Liebschaften," Liebighaus 2016, No. 34 – see illustrations below).
The painting was previously owned by Frederick the Great and is now on permanent loan from the HypoVereinsbank Collection to the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Alte Pinakothek, Munich.
Due to space constraints, the Meissen painter omitted Lancret’s second shepherdess but otherwise adhered quite closely to the engraving. Interestingly, he added the bust in the background from a Watteau engraving.
This engraving also served as the model for the only other known black-ground snuff box, which we are also offering (see No. S20 and following illustration).
The other snuff box is published in:
Both snuff boxes are closely related, both in terms of their exterior decoration and the painting of the interior lid scene. The inclusion of the bust strongly suggests Johann George Heintze as the painter, as he was known for his preference for placing such busts and obelisks in natural settings.
The black ground is extremely rare. Among the "twelve ground colors" in Höroldt’s Painting Models of 1731 (Boltz 1997), it is not mentioned, although Boltz states that it is recorded in the Meissen warehouse inventory of 1730. Aside from the two known snuff boxes, only three Augustus Rex vases with a black ground are known to exist (Untermyer Collection, Fig. 107, T. 70, 71 and Kocher Collection, D’Agliano 2003, No. 17).
