Musical Snuff Box: Museum Object and Cultural History

The object in the museum catalogue

This music box was made an undetermined maker, probably Switzerland, around 1830-1840. It is a musical snuff box, with 2 tunes. The music box has a segmented comb with 17 4-teeth sections. The cylinder is 2-13/32" long. The music box is activated by a key wound spring. Carved on the music box top:

Clever miniature portable devices, musical snuff boxes such as this one were called carillons à musique. Highly desired objects of status and crafted primarily in Switzerland, they influenced the development and popularity of all music box production in the 19th century. This musical snuff box was likely a souvenir from Brest, France.

Materials, dates and provenance

• date made: 1830 - 1840
• Object Name: music box
• Physical Description: tortoise shell (case material)
• Physical Description: metal, brass (works material)
• Physical Description: metal, steel (works material)
• Physical Description: horn, semi-transparent (inner lid material)
• Measurements: overall: 3/4 in x 3 1/4 in x 2 in; 1.905 cm x 8.255 cm x 5.08 cm
• ID Number: MI.204576b
• accession number: 36046
• catalog number: 204576b
• Credit Line: Gift of E. M. Marbury
• Data Source: National Museum of American History

Sources and reuse

Catalogue descriptions and facts adapted from National Museum of American History through the Smithsonian's official Open Access dataset. This record explicitly marks its metadata CC0 1.0; formatting and selection have been changed.