Snuff Box (Tabatière) (1779–80): Art, History and Details

Snuff Box (Tabatière) (1779–80) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Pierre Marie Gault De Saint-Germain (French, 1754–1842).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Decorated with images derived from ancient Greek and Roman history in the style of cameos, intricately carved gemstones, this box evokes the rising neoclassical imagery in France. The scenes on the box recount several key events in the life of Alexander the Great. The enameled works were inspired by a series of prints by Sébastien Leclerc which drew from a series of paintings by Charles Le Brun.

Object facts

• Title: Snuff Box (Tabatière)
• Date: 1779–80
• Creator attribution: Pierre Marie Gault De Saint-Germain (French, 1754–1842)
• Culture: France
• Type: Miscellaneous
• Technique: gold and enamel
• Dimensions: Overall: 3.4 x 6.8 cm (1 5/16 x 2 11/16 in.)
• Collection: Decorative Arts
• Department: Decorative Art and Design
• Accession number: 1957.409

A detail from the museum

The original series painted by Charles Le Brun, The Battles of Alexander (Les Batailles d’Alexandre) (1600s), was commissioned by King Louis XIV of France.

Collection credit

Gift of Mrs. Edward B. Greene

Further reading listed by the museum

• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.