Cleveland Museum of Art

Snuff Box (Tabatière) with Portrait of Marie Antoinette

Pierre-François-Mathis de Beaulieu

Date

1768

Medium

watercolor on ivory in a gold and enamel box

Culture

France, 18th century

Department

Decorative Art and Design

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

This box was created through the collaboration of two skilled and well-known artisans of the period, master goldsmith Pierre-François-Mathis de Beaulieu and celebrated miniature painter François Dumont. The portrait of Marie Antoinette on the box's lid is painted in Dumont’s own style while those on the sides and bottom of the box take inspiration from the work of painter François Boucher, known for his pastoral scenes in the Rococo style. Marie Antoinette, queen consort of French King Louis XVI and great patron of the decorative arts, was executed in 1793 at the end of the French Revolution.

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