Antique 1700s French Snuff Box, Vernis Martin & Miniature Painting: Love Symbols
A VERY interesting item, this! Look at the painting on the cover of this 1700s snuff box. You find there a plethora of objects, symbols, and yet it's not clear to us all these 200+ years later what story they tell. I see a pair of lovebirds or doves cooing to one another amidst items in disarray. perhaps it heralds the end of a war, or represents love in the midst of war? You see a cage on fire, a sword hanging with a red bow, a tipped over torch and scabbard of arrows lying with a hat and tambourine. There's a shield on a chair or sleigh, I see a document tube there, too, the type that would have carried maps or war documents, perhaps? What does it all mean? Is it love in war time? Is it the war of a love being destroyed? We will never know, but the original giver, who commission or painted the scene surely knew and knew it would be accurately read by the person who was to receive it. Don't you wish these objects would tell us the stories to which they were a party? I think this one w