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Snuff Box (Tabatière)
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art. Free to download, adapt and use — no permission needed.
About this work
Snuff boxes were highly ornamented functional objects popular among French social elites. They were simultaneously containers for powdered tobacco and a means to communicate social and political status. Often decorated with miniature paintings inspired by popular paintings of the time, the works reproduced on this box are modeled after those of Claude-Joseph Vernet (cover and front panel) and David Teniers the Younger (base, side, and back panels).
Cleveland Museum of Art’s own descriptionCredit lineSnuff Box (Tabatière), 1768–69; 1776–78. Pierre-Nicholas Pleyard (French). Gouache miniatures mounted on gold; overall: 2.6 x 5.3 cm (1 x 2 1/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Mrs. Edward B. Greene, 1958.123
