Snuffbox

Noël Hardivillers

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This gold and enamel snuffbox is an example of the exuberant Rococo motifs that found their way onto a variety of luxury items, including these small cases for holding nasal tobacco that became popular during the eighteenth century. Marked by the goldsmith Noël Hardivillers, the box is decorated on the lid with a charming vignette that features an overturned basket of flowers tied with a blue ribbon, surrounded by S-shaped scrolls and shell motifs engraved into the surrounding surface and heightened with translucent enamel en basse taille, a goldsmith technique that entails engraving or chasing the surface of the metal with a design and then covering it with a layer of translucent enamel, in a similar manner to another snuffbox by Hardivillers in the museum (1976.155.5).

European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The fifty thousand objects in the Museum's comprehensive and historically important collection of European sculpture and decorative arts reflect the development of a number of art forms in Western European countries from the early fifteenth through the early twentieth century. The holdings include sculpture in many sizes and media, woodwork and furniture, ceramics and glass, metalwork and jewelry, horological and mathematical instruments, and tapestries and textiles. Ceramics made in Asia for export to European markets and sculpture and decorative arts produced in Latin America during this period are also included among these works.

Metropolitan Museum of Art