Antique French Sterling Silver & Vernis Martin Painting Necessaire & Note Card
This one has a very tiny silver mark that my photographer missed capturing. It's there on the inner lip of the bottom half, where it closed into the upper hinged top portion, and it's a small profile mark that guarantees it as a .800/1000 purity of silver, made in France between 1818-1838. It is in the earlier style favored by Marie-Antoinette, and developed by the brothers Martin, which was a method of layering paint and varnish to get a depth of image and for decorative objects like this one. Your visit to Versailles might have been your first experience with such decorative style, and it's there en masse in the rooms mid-late 1700s, from large wall panels to small vanity items. The style has come to be known as Vernis Martin. The eventual darkening of the varnish usually has given this vibrantly colorful painting style a warmth in yellowing and you can see that result in this lovely small item. The outer wrapping is probably leather, most likely fine shagreen (skin of sting ray) bas