Truman, Charles — The Gilbert Collection of Gold Boxes

Book Good Dust Jacket Included 1st Edition Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California English text.; Hardcover (with dust jacket).; 25 x 31 cm.; 2.3 kg.; 432 pages with 494 colour and 48 black-and-white illustrations. Includes hallmarks, bibliography, and index.; Used with signs of wear on the exterior and interior. The dust jacket is worn and shows wear marks, edge wear, scuffs and scratches; there are several scratches on the back cover that causes part of the black ink missing, showing the white paper underneath; a few scratches on the front cover caused the same damage. Minor signs of wear on the interior. Good readable/working copy.; A stylish snuffbox was de rigueur for fashionable gentlemen or gentlewomen of eighteenth-century Paris, and as went Paris, so went the fashion for snuff and elaborate snuffboxes in all the capitals of Europe. Exquisitely crafted purely of gold or gold combined with jewels or rare and precious materials, the snuffbox was an elegant accoutrement that served as a status symbol and sometimes as a royal gift. Gold boxes are microcosms of European decorative arts that epitomize the luxurious tastes of a stylish, aristocratic elite. This catalogue of the Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Collection is a thorough examination of one of the world's most comprehensive collections of European gold boxes. It comprises more than 140 superb examples and rivals the greatest European collections in depth and quality. Included are fifty-four boxes made in Paris, the center of fashion, in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries; several exceptionally flamboyant German boxes made of semiprecious stones-most of them set with a profusion of diamonds-made for Frederick the Great, king of Prussia; and fabulous boxes from England, Switzerland, Russia, Austria, Holland, Poland, and Italy. All the major centers of production are represented in this astonishing assemblage. The book begins with a brief survey of the use of snuffboxes and presentation boxes from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century and of the design and manufacture of gold boxes. The catalogue portion, which forms the bulk of the book, is divided into national sections with introductions that discuss the production and hall-marking of gold boxes in the different countries. The boxes in each section are arranged in chronological order. The Gilbert Collection of Gold Boxes discusses and reproduces many boxes that have not been previously published. Written by Charles Truman, a leading expert on gold boxes and author of numerous articles and definitive catalogues, the book contains much new information and constitutes a summary of current knowledge of the subject. A special feature of this book is the inclusion of multiple full-color views of most of the boxes, allowing the reader to enjoy the enamel paintings, miniatures, mosaics, and exquisite chasing that adorn these sumptuous objects-all of which are reproduced at their actual size.