#Snuffbox of Frederick II

[underthewingsofthblackeagle]

Snuffbox of Frederick the Great

Some Prussian Glory to gild your weekend :)

[autodidactprofessor]

Frederick the Great: The Soldier King of Prussia

Frederick II of Prussia, known to history as Frederick the Great, was one of the most significant and influential monarchs of the 18th century. His reign, from 1740 to 1786, transformed Prussia from a relatively minor German state into a major power.

Snuffbox with portrait of Frederick the Great (1712–1786), King of Prussia by Daniel Baudesson is licensed under CC-CC0 1.0 The Early Life of Frederick: A Prince in Conflict Frederick was born on January 24, 1712, in Berlin, the eldest surviving son of Frederick William I of Prussia and Sophia Dorothea of Hanover. From the outset, Frederick’s life was shaped by the intense and often brutal…

[steliosagapitos]

~ "Chrysoprase box with diamonds - This box forms part of the group of snuffboxes associated with Frederick II, the Great of Prussia (r. 1740-1786). The chrysoprase body was carved from a single stone and richly set with hardstones and diamonds." ~

[indolentfop]

Snuffbox

German (Berlin) circa 1765 Glass, gold, silver, diamonds and rubies

“Elaborately jeweled in multi-colored floral motifs, this snuffbox was probably commissioned by Frederick II of Prussia (1712-87), along with a group of 125 works of similar design known as the “Potsdam boxes.” This is the only glass-bodied piece. The design of all of the boxes have been attributed to the English-born artist Guillaume George Krüger, who was active in Berlin between 1753 and 1774.”

[kristabella]

Snuffbox ca. 1765 (made)

This box forms part of the group of snuffboxes associated with Frederick II, the Great of Prussia (r.1740-86). The chrysoprase body was carved from a single stone and richly set with hardstones and diamonds. Chrysoprase was a particular favourite of Frederick. It was mined in Silesia, the first territory which he added to Prussia by conquest in 1740. In his final illness, specimens of polished and rough chrysoprase, as well as his jewels and boxes, were laid out for him to see. The diamonds have been coloured by being set over pale pink, green and lemon yellow metal foils. For more information, see A. Minter et al, Masterpieces in Miniature: Treasures from the Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Collection (London: V&A Publishing, 2021), p.105.

Sir Arthur and Rosalinde Gilbert began collecting in the 1960s and over a period of 40 years formed one of the world’s great private collections of decorative arts. The collection consists of over 800 objects from the fields of European gold and silver, Italian mosaics and hardstone, portrait enamels and gold boxes. Sir Arthur Gilbert donated his extraordinary collection to Britain in 1996 to be housed at Somerset House, London, having previously been displayed at Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). In 2008 the collection was moved to dedicated galleries in the V&A, where a selection has been on permanent display ever since.

Length: 10cm Width: 7.8cm Height: 5cm

Chrysoprase table snuffbox About 1765 Chrysoprase was a particular favourite of Frederick the Great. It was mined in Silesia, the first territory he conquered in 1740. Towards the end of Frederick’s life, specimens of polished and rough chrysoprase, as well as his jewels and boxes, were laid out on his sickbed for him to see. Berlin, Germany Chrysoprase, gold, diamonds, carnelians and foil Formerly in the collection of the Prussian empress Auguste Viktoria (1858–1921), wife of Wilhelm II, and their son, Prince Oskar von Preussen Museum no. Loan:Gilbert.412-2008(16/11/2016)

Chrysoprase snuffbox About 1765 Chrysoprase was a particular favourite of Frederick the Great. It was mined in Silesia, the first territory which he added to Prussia by conquest in 1740. In his final illness, specimens of polished and rough chrysoprase, as well as his jewels and boxes, were laid out for him to see. The diamonds have been coloured by being set over pale pink, green and lemon yellow metal foils. Berlin, Germany Chrysoprase, gold, diamonds, carnelians and foil Formerly in the collections of the Prussian empress Auguste Viktoria (1858–1921), wife of Wilhelm II, and their son, Prince Oskar von Preussen Museum no. Loan:Gilbert.412-2008(2009)

[et-in-arkadia]

“Here,” says Crowley, pushing the picnic basket across their blanket with a little kick of his foot. “There’s another dessert you missed, angel.”

“How lovely,” says Aziraphale, already aglow from the finest and most sumptuously packed picnic St. James’s Park has seen in its history, a sight more over-the-top than when James used to parade his crocodiles and camels about on the grounds. 

Crowley has outdone himself, with a basket miracled into producing one delicacy after the other after the other, and their fourth bottle of champagne has left Aziraphale feeling as effervescent. He’s more than satiated. “But I’m positive I couldn’t eat another bite.”

“Sure you could,” says Crowley enticingly. He drops his chin so that his sunglasses slide down his nose and show his eyes. How it’s possible for snake’s eyes to resemble a puppy’s on cue Aziraphale has never been able to figure out. “Just one bite is enough. I’m curious to know what you think, is all.”

“Well, I suppose it won’t hurt,” says Aziraphale, who rather can imagine a few more bites, if they’re anywhere near as delectable as Crowley’s other choices. He draws the basket closer and peeks inside. It’s empty now save for a plain white baker’s box tied up with red and white string. 

There’s a nice heft to it as he takes it out, the strings unknotting with a thought. Crowley watches him intently, the sunglasses removed now, and Aziraphale wonders what he has in store. Almond-paste m’hanncha from Morocco, where they’d so enjoyed them once? Juicy rasgoola from Nepal? Those dear oversweet American chocolate chip biscuits?

He flips open the box and blinks down in confusion. Inside is a fantastically bejeweled snuffbox in a swirling rococo style. Aziraphale recognizes it at once—it belonged to Frederick II of Prussia, and is meant to be in the Victoria & Albert Museum in Knightsbridge, not resting against cardboard. “Crowley,” he starts.

“Open it,” Crowley says. “That’s just more packaging.”

Aziraphale gingerly lifts the lid. There, on a bed of white velvet, is a ring.

It’s a simple ring, a wide circle of gold gleaming in the faint sunlight through the trees. It looks old, wrought by hand, the kind of craftsmanship most didn’t bother with these days. Its color is an exceptionally pale yellow that some part of Aziraphale’s suddenly spinning brain notes is quite close to his own hair’s shade. He stares at the ring a long moment, then up at Crowley, too many questions on his tongue.

Crowley is on one knee in the grass beside him. He’d moved so silently Aziraphale hadn’t seen him do it. He’s balanced like that, straight-backed and as serious, only when he meets Aziraphale’s eyes he blows out a dramatic breath and says, “I know, I know, it isn’t done, it’s a weird human tradition and it’s not meant for us, but I thought—I thought, maybe, angel—”

Aziraphale scrambles to his feet, the plucked ring safe in his hand. He looks down at Crowley, feels his all-too-human-like heart racing and skipping. “My dear,” he manages. Now his palm holding the ring is perspiring. “If you’re going to ask me, ask me.”

Crowley swallows, but looks fortified by this, so he squares his shoulders, then takes Aziraphale’s free hand between both of his. “Will you marry me, Aziraphale?”

The query emerges easily enough, as though he’s practiced it before. Many, many times. Less so what Crowley tacks on: “No church for us, right, consecrated ground and all—I’m not—I’m not asking for anything like that. This would be only for us. Just something that we’d know about, that they couldn’t take away if they tried.”

“Oh, Crowley.” In all of his long years, Aziraphale never imagined anything of the kind. Then again, in most of those years, he hadn’t been expecting to end up cohabitating with his adversarial best friend that he was very much in love with. All things told, this is far down the list of strange things happening in regards to them. It might, however, be one of the best. 

Aziraphale studies his demonical counterpart’s face, the nervous way Crowley has the edge of his lip drawn between his teeth, the open, hopeful expression, those pleading eyes. So loved. Every inch of Crowley, beloved.

“Of course I will,” says Aziraphale. “Of course. Yes.”

“Yes?” Crowley’s face goes white, then red, then settles on a blushing pink. “Do you mean it?”

“I don’t think this is the right time for jokes,” hums Aziraphale. For emphasis he slips the ring onto the proper left finger, then holds out his hand admiringly, turning it this way and that.

Crowley gets to his feet, only just managing not to stagger sideways. He wraps his arms around Aziraphale; there is no displacement of air, but on another plane, black wings enfold them also. “If you knew how long I’ve had that ring, you might give it back. Bit creepy.”

“I think that sounds dreadfully romantic,” says Aziraphale, pulling him close into a breath-defying kiss. It’s a long time until there’s air for speaking, and Aziraphale remembers the words that he knows. There is one that is new and extraordinary and never before shared between them. “Let’s resume our picnic, husband, and you can tell me all about it.”

[babayagatestblog]

Ivory snuffbox showing the Abduction of Io, 1825. V&A Museum, London.

Over the last few weeks, during my lockdown drift, I’ve been browsing through a collection of pocket snuffboxes held at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Snuffboxes were lavishly decorated containers used to store pulverized tobacco, a popular stimulant and panacea for the aches and pains of the European aristocracy during the colonial period. The boxes at the V&A – available to view in intricate detail online – are glitzy, ostentatious combinations of gold, silver, tortoise shell, fine wood, diamonds, and semi-precious stones. Many include tiny porcelain paintings of lovers or tales from antiquity. This one, made in London in 1825, features an elaborately carved ivory depicting the rape of Io, a priestess of the goddess Hera, seduced by Zeus in the form of a cloud. Another box from Germany in 1765, made of a lawn-green chrysoprase and diamonds laid over pink, orange, and yellow tinsel, slightly resembles a rose garden, or a really gaudy Claire’s compact.

Before the French revolution, the most sought-after architects, designers and craftsmen in Paris had workshops for the production of little boxes and trinkets. At the height of the craze for courtly elegance, these ‘toys’ could be found all over Europe and Russia, in pockets newly sewn into trousers and skirts. King Frederick of Prussia, a huge collector of little boxes, carried one around with him at all times. It was even said that his snuffbox stopped a bullet from killing him during the Seven Years War. Later, before he died, he had them all laid out in his room, surrounding him like reliquaries, or miniature tombs. 

I don’t know what got me thinking about this object, but now it won’t leave me alone. It keeps coming into my mind, troubling me during moments I least expect it. Maybe it has something to do with the word. ‘Snuffbox’ conjures up all sorts of unsettling associations. ‘Snuff out,’ ‘snuff film,’ putting something in a box, a casket. In addition to keeping someone’s hands busy, offering snuff evolved into a secret social code of wordless gestures, the ‘Language of the Tabatière.’ I can’t help but imagine that these boxes were somehow a precursor to the iPhone, their role as addictive distraction well outliving the form.  

Chrysoprase & diamond snuffbox owned by Frederick II, 1765. V&A Museum.

Although hugely popular in Europe, snuff was originally used by indigenous populations across Brazil and the West Indies. While traveling the New World as part of Columbus’ second voyage, a Franciscan monk came upon a priest in Haiti snorting pulverized tobacco. The still mysterious herb was then introduced to the Spanish court and promoted as a cure for headaches. Under the reign of Queen Anne, snuff was called the “final reason for the human nose,” while Catherine de Medici proclaimed it the “Herba Regina.” By the 17th century, England, Portugal, and Spain all had colonies in the Americas in order to satisfy a growing demand in Europe. Having exhausted the labor of native populations, roughly 10.5 million Africans were transported to work on tobacco, rice, and sugar plantations in South America and the Caribbean. (For comparison, only about 6% of people enslaved as part of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade were shipped to North America). In retrospect, the winsome décor of the snuffbox seems to contradict, obscure, or deny this wider history of cultural robbery and enslavement. 

“Jack and the Golden Snuffbox” is an English fairy tale recorded by folklorist Joseph Jacobs in an 1890 anthology of English children's stories. In the story, Jack, a young boy, decides to leave his provincial home in order to explore the world and discover a new life for himself. To help him along his journey, his father gives him a magical snuffbox. After wandering for some time, Jack is taken in by a maid and her father. Jack falls in love with the maid, but her father won’t let him marry unless the boy satisfies an impossible demand. “At eight o’clock in the morning,” he says, “I must have a great lake and some of the largest man-of-war vessels sailing before my mansions, and one of the largest vessels must fire a royal salute, and the last round must break the leg of the bed before where my young daughter is sleeping. And if you don’t do that, you will have to forfeit your life.” Without any recourse, Jack decides to open up the golden snuffbox. Out come three little red men, who build him a large, supernaturally endowed war vessel floating on a lake.

Rococo engraving by Jean Mondon, 1740.

I’m no authority on folklore, and this is just the beginning of the tale. But the imagery is striking. It isn’t surprising that the snuffbox would be considered an enchanted object. The powder, originating from the Haitian ritual, was thought to have mysterious healing properties. The box could also be considered a protection from death, as the legend of King Frederick shows. But what about the psychological drama behind Jack and his future father-in-law? I’m reminded of a passage from Toni Morrison’s Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination, in which she investigates the allure of the New World as an opening for Englishmen looking to escape the “powerlessness felt before the gates of class, caste, and cunning persecution.” One could move from “discipline and punishment to disciplining and punishing; from social ostracism to social rank.” We are told that the pressures Jack faces are inordinately difficult, blown out of realistic proportion. Essentially a penniless boy, he builds himself a war vessel, clears a piece of land, travels the world, but only through the help of the red men, imagined to be otherworldly, mute, exploitable.  

When I started investigating the snuffbox, an object I came across more or less at random, I did not expect to discover such a layered history. It’s colonial background, magical suggestion, and excessive decoration are rooted in a historical time and place, but it isn’t disconnected from the here and now. “Sometimes first impressions gather up some of the residue of centuries,” says John Berger. Maybe it isn’t so strange I would have thought about this object when white Europe and America are again realizing how far off the mark they are in attempting to right the wrongs of the colonial past. This highly crafted, dazzling, revealing little object makes me consider the difference between a beauty that seeks to conceal or compensate for brutality, versus the kind of beauty in art that challenges violence, rejects it, and ultimately enables us to see more clearly our own tendencies for both violence and compassion. These are questions I am thinking about in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, when the virality surrounding his death – as well as Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Elijah McClain – has been such a prominent part of current visual culture.  

Death has never had a mimetic afterlife quite like this. It is there in our hand-held devices, flattened to fit into a stream of other images. Names of people who have lost lives to police brutality have occasionally been aestheticized with the help of colorful graphics for wider sharing. Are there conflicting desires behind these pictures – to both reveal and obscure? Many writers have recently challenged us to think harder about sharing on social media, including Allissa V. Richardson in her new book, Bearing Witness While Black. In her brilliant film essay and lecture, “The Black Meme,” Legacy Russell points out that there has been a certain amount of ‘gamifying’ in attempts to fit Breonna Taylor’s name into clever tweets, grocery lists, and crossword puzzles. We do not yet have the ability to look back and see what the real-life outcome of widespread sharing on social media will be. But I wondered, when scrolling through the images of the boxes on the V&A’s website, whether it wasn’t possible for people to give more consideration to what it was they are holding in their hands, and the meanings behind their own rituals of sharing. Do trends on social media somehow anesthetize us to the pain of the story? Are they themselves a form of distraction? Could I be involved in more pro-active forms of justice, and working on a more transformative form of art? The past filters into the present in ways we least expect it. It is there to help, if only we can tune in and listen.  

[aworldinpinkandwhite]

Frederick II “The Great” of Prussia (r. 1740-1786) was extremely fond of snuffboxes, carrying one on his person at all times and collecting one for each day of the year. He was equally fond of the mineral chrysoprase (a kind of green chalcedony) and so he decided to have no less than eight different snuffboxes made from the stuff. 

This example is thought to have been made by Jean Guillaume George Kruger in 1765 and was later given by Frederick to his brother Augustus Wilhelm (Prince of Prussia) as a gift. The lid and box are each their own solid pieces of chrysoprase with gold accents and the decorative diamonds are given a slight tint by the use of colored foil mounted behind them.

Despite being a military man, Frederick supported the arts and fed his love of minerals even on his deathbed. Part of his continued love for snuffboxes may have been due to the fact that one saved his life:

In 1759 at the Battle of Kunersdorf, a Russian bullet struck Frederick. Fortunately, however, he was carrying a snuffbox as usual and the bullet struck the box and deflected, leaving Frederick unharmed.

[tiny-librarian]

Detail of the top of the lid of a snuffbox, made around 1770.

In depicts Queen Charlotte, the wife of George III, with her siblings, a sister in law, and a niece.

Queen Charlotte is in the blue dress, her sister Christiane is in the white dress, and sister in law Friederike of Hesse-Darmstadt (Married to Charles) is wearing pink, holding her infant daughter Charlotte in her lap.

Seated in green is Adolphus Frederick IV . Standing on the far left is Charles II, then George in white in the middle, and Ernest on the far right.