Albert Coles was one of the nineteenth-century’s foremost manufacturers of flatware in the United States, in addition to supplying cups, goblets, napkin rings, bouquet holders, portemonnaies, infant’s rattles, and coffin plates, as well as matchboxes, tobacco boxes, and snuffboxes.  This box, poignantly engraved to Coles from his employees, regrettably fails to elucidate on the occasion for its presentation.

Technical notes: The box is constructed with a seven-part hinge. Its interior is gilded, a standard practice, since snuff is corrosive.

Related examples: Other Coles snuffboxes were auctioned at Christie’s, New York, sale 7624, January 22, 1993, lot 58.

Book excerpt: David B. Warren, Michael K. Brown, Elizabeth Ann Coleman, and Emily Ballew Neff.  American Decorative Arts and Paintings in the Bayou Bend Collection. Houston: Princeton Univ. Press, 1998.