Price guide to antique military snuff boxes. Military snuff boxes may refer to either snuff boxes with a provenance of a military person or they may have a pictorial scene representing the military.
An early 19th century French gold and enamelled snuff box, by Victoire Boizot (veuve Blerzy), Paris 1808 – 1819 Unusual wavy-edge rectangular form, the cover centred with an enamel plaque depicting a harbour scene with mountains in the distance, a barque with pennants fluttering with the sun setting behind over a rayed engine-turned ground, within a stiff leafed frame and a border of pale green-highlighted acanthus scrolls on a lilac enamel ground with red and white paterae, the underside with blue pink and red enamel of radiating wavy lines centered on a patera, the sides with translucent red taille d’epergne wavy lines between white bands on a pink ground, the base centred with the tugra of Ottoman Sultan Mahmud II (1784-1839) on a pink ground with translucent red roses and a similar acanthus border, length 8cm, weight total 188gms. Sold for £18,125 inc. premium at Bonhams in 2018
A PARCEL-GILT SILVER AND NIELLO SNUFF-BOX MAKER’S MARK CYRILLIC ‘DSh’, MOSCOW, 1818 Rectangular, the nielloed hinged cover depicting Emperor Alexander I and allegorical figure of Europe, within an architectural setting, the sides inscribed in Russian ‘Your firmness saved Europe / Your victory brought peace’, also inscribed ‘Peace in Europe 1814’, the base nielloed with military trophies, all on gilt stippled ground, interior gilt, marked inside cover and base 3½ in. (8.8 cm.) wide 3.5 oz. (110 gr.) gross Sold for GBP 2,000 at Christies in 2017
A PORCELAIN SNUFF BOX, GERMAN, LATE 19TH CENTURY cartouche shaped with waisted sides, the lid and sides painted with vignettes of military figures in a skirmish and outside tents reserved on a magenta scalework ground, the lid interior with a portrait of Frederick the Great, silver-gilt mount maker’s marked DE 7.8cm long. Sold for £1,300 at Matthew Barton Ltd. in 2016
A commemorative gold and enamel double portrait snuff box, maker’s mark IB probably for James Bellis, London, 1767 oval, the lid set with an earlier glazed portrait of Sir Robert Rich, (1685-1768), 4th Baronet, of Roos (Rose) Hall, Suffolk, painted on enamel by Charles Boit, signed ‘Boit p.’, circa 1710-15, the interior of the lid with an earlier portrait of his wife, Elizabeth Griffith (died 1773), by Christian Frederich Zincke, circa 1710 -15, chased overall with military trophies within key fret over a hatched ground, maker’s mark IB in a cut-cornered rectangle, London standard marks and date letter, in contemporary plush-lined fishskin case Sold for 68,750 GBP at Sothebys in 2017
