Napoléon Ier

Lot n° 39
Miniature 5,5cmx3,4cm

A gold and enamel Imperial presentation portrait snuff box, ( orfèvre : Gabriel-Raoul Morel, Paris, 1812-1815

rectangular, the lid inset with a miniature of Napoléon I, French School, after Robert Lefebvre, after 1812, wearing the red and dark green uniform of a colonel of the chasseurs à cheval, with the sash, star and badge of the Order of the Legion of Honour and the badge of the Iron Cross of Lombardy, within a rectangular spandrel chased with foliate scrolls on a matted ground, narrow black enamel frame, the sides and base diaper engine-turned within borders decorated with neo-classical ornament in blue enamel, maker's mark, baby's head 2me titre, petite garantie 1809-1819, the left rim stamped: 65 and engraved: No 234

The miniature is after Robert Lefèvre’s full-length portrait of the emperor painted in 1812 (Apsley House Collection, inv. no. WM 1491-1948). Compared with the images of Napoléon painted by Augustin and Isabey in the early years of the empire, which heretofore had been used for presentation snuff boxes, the present portrait shows a more world-weary figure of authority. The same source was used by Jean Baptiste Joseph Duchesne for a miniature inset in a jewelled gold and enamel snuff box presented by the emperor to the British sculptor Anne Seymour Damer on 1 May 1815 (British Museum, London, inv. no. 1828,1111.1).
Gabriel Raoul Morel (Paris 1764 – Passy 1832) entered a first goldsmith’s mark, using a flower (described as a bouquet) as device, on 22 Messidor, an V (1797). He is subsequently recorded by Douët at 5 place Thionville in 1806. He entered the lozenge mark seen on this box (GRM below an ear) in 1812/13 when he moved to 3 rue du Coq-St-Honoré, taking over the premises of Victoire Boisot, widow of Etienne-Lucien Blerzy.