Antique French Hand Carved 6.5" Long Shoe or Boot Snuff Box, Pique, Earliest 19th Century antique sculpture also there for your review

also there for your review

a covering for the portrait mount

perhaps purchased on someone's own Grand Tour style vacation

and still reflects through the very thin wafer as a mirror reflects light

Jezler & Cie AG

Antique French Hand Carved 6.5" Long Shoe or Boot Snuff Box, Pique, Earliest 19th Century antique sculpture also there for your reviewThere is a wonderful tiny boutique on a tiny street near St. Paul's in the Marais, Paris, where for decades I have visited every trip just to look at the shoe and boot snuffs (and their very elevated prices). One might think they're not as rare as they are the gentleman who's kept the boutique for a lifetime is perhaps the single most prolific collector. Always fun to compare his with the ones I've found over my long lifetime of collecting them. Based