1966 Eighteenth Century Gold Boxes of Europe

Description

Colour Plates, First Edition, Illustrated, Publishers' Original Binding, With Dustwrapper

Gold boxes were some of the most luxurious items in eighteenth century Europe, presented as gifts to friends and lovers, and by monarchs to ambassadors and courtiers. With various intricate designs, these boxes were used to hold powdered tobacco or sweets and bonbons and were considered an essential fashion item.

A Kenneth Snowman provides a study  of these boxes, looking at the materials and techniques and at the differences in style from French, English, Berliner, Swiss and Russian boxes, as well as boxes from smaller workshops around Europe. The first edition in its unclipped dust wrapper.

With a foreword by Sacheverell Sitwell and an Appendix by F J B Watson. Illustrated with two-hundred-and-twenty-nine full page plates, of which eighty five in colour. Collated, complete with all seven-hundred and fifty figures.

From the library at Julian Park, Hertfordshire, belonging to Audrey Pleydell-Bouverie. Audrey was the youngest daughter of an Anglo-American lumber and steel millionaire, sister to Edward James, a key figure in the Surrealist movement, and the illegitimate granddaughter of King Edward VII. She was an English socialite included in The Book of Beauty by Cecil Beaton. A patron of the arts, she assisted Viscount Carlow financially in the publication of limited editions of numerous works by leading literary figures such as T E Lawrence, James Joyce, Wyndham Lewis, and others.