Antique French 18k & Tortoise Shell Snuff Box, 18th Century Portrait Miniature of 2 Blond Girls
I am not completely positive of it, but all indications are that these 2 young women are from the politically-guided young and wealthy Royalists who chose frivolous fashion and exaggerated Neoclassicism (for the women, primarily) to parade their protest of the heads lost to the guillotine, The Terror of the French Revolution. The dates for that movement: c.1795-99. These 2 young women, possibly sisters, wear their hair in a throwback to classicism, and they wear little else. It was the habit of this group of Paris youth to have their portraits done, almost always framed in 18k gold, mounted as lockets or on snuff boxes like this one, the face plate of the mount being a thin plaque of 18k (not gold plated, but a gold plaque mounted to the frame which holds the portrait and its convex cover glass together to be inset into the snuff box lid. Beautiful old box in finest tortoise shell, typical of the era - 225 or so years back. Full measurements are noted on the photos. Very good to excell