A courtly Parisian silver gilt toilette box
Of rectangular section on a flat base; the outer surface decorated throughout with finely chased fruiting grape vines. The rim of the smooth, two-tiered hinged lid decorated with embossed draperies alternating with garlands of palmettes and two classical style portrait medallions flanked by pairs of amoretti crossed quivers. The plateau of the lid with a laurel wreath surrounding a pair of standing amoretti unveiling a wreathed mirrored monogram beneath a princely crown. The interior with a base panel engraved with tulips and acanthus beneath an associated pierced inset from 1843 with three square compartments. H 7, W 27, D 22.5 cm, weight 1,922 g.
Marks of André Regnier, 1674. The associated Victorian inset with marks of Samuel Whitford II, 1843.
These boxes, which were referred to as “carrés” owing to their shape, formed an integral part of courtly toilette services in the 17th century and were probably primarily used to store combs and brushes. Rosenborg Palace in Copenhagen preserves a service made around the same time for Princess Hedvig Sophia of Sweden, for which Regnier supplied a pair of nearly identical carrés, a glove box and two brushes.
The princely crown in relief on the lid corresponds to a British rank crown, as befits the son or daughter of a reigning monarch. The ligatured mirror monogram may refer to Princess Alice of Great Britain and Ireland (1843 - 1878), the second daughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, who was born and christened in the year the Victorian insert was made.
Literature
For more on André Regnier cf. Bimbenet-Privat, Les Orfèvres et l'orfèvrerie de Paris au XVIIème, Paris 2002, p. 489. An ecuelle by this maker from 1657 is housed in the Musée des Arts Decoratifs in Paris, illus. ibid., vol. II, Paris 2002, no. 64. For more on Parisian toilette garnitures of the 17th century, cf. also the service for Queen Mary of England currently housed in the collection of the Duke of Devonshire, illus. in Micio, Les Collections de Monsieur Frère de Louis XIV, Paris, 2014, p. 257.