Tortoise shell snuff box with a lady at her dressing table

An image of Snuff box/Objets de vertu. A lady at her dressing table. Unknown maker. Tortoise shell with chased gilt metal mounts, inlaid gold piqué point work and a painted polychrome vignette in bodycolour, probably on card, under glass. Oval with straight sides with projecting edges and a projecting hinge. The top of the lid is decorated with a flowering tree, rocks, plants and a dragonfly. The base is decorated with a simpler image of a plant, cloud and dragonfly. The interior of the lid is painted with a lady seated before her dressing table and mirror; she reads a letter whilst attended by a coloured servant bringing chocolate or coffee. The thumbpiece and mount of the lid are chased with stylized foliage and flower heads. Height 1.6 cm, length 8.0 cm, width 6.5 cm, 1730-1760. Rococo. The box may be of earlier manufacture than the painting in the lid.

Terms of use

The low-resolution images published on this Website are made available under a Creative Commons Attribution licence (CC BY-NC-ND). For more details: Fitzwilliam Terms of Use

This licence does not include any images of works that are still in copyright. Artistic copyright extends from the life of the artist to 70 years from the end of the calendar year in which the artist died.

Download this image

For further information on use of images or to license a high resolution version, please contact our image library who can discuss terms and fees.

Snuff box/Objets de vertu. A lady at her dressing table. Unknown maker. Tortoise shell with chased gilt metal mounts, inlaid gold piqué point work and a painted polychrome vignette in bodycolour, probably on card, under glass. Oval with straight sides with projecting edges and a projecting hinge. The top of the lid is decorated with a flowering tree, rocks, plants and a dragonfly. The base is decorated with a simpler image of a plant, cloud and dragonfly. The interior of the lid is painted with a lady seated before her dressing table and mirror; she reads a letter whilst attended by a coloured servant bringing chocolate or coffee. The thumbpiece and mount of the lid are chased with stylized foliage and flower heads. Height 1.6 cm, length 8.0 cm, width 6.5 cm, 1730-1760. Rococo. The box may be of earlier manufacture than the painting in the lid.

Image data

Accession Number: M.58-1984
Photograph copyright © The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.
Aperture: f/22.0
Focal length: 120
Camera: Hasselblad H3DII-31
Photographer name: Amy Jugg
Image height: 674 pixels
Image width: 1024 pixels
Processed with: Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5.6 (Macintosh)
Filesize: 163.66kB
Exposure time: 1/60
ISO Speed: 100
Fnumber: 22/1
Captured: 2014:04:10 12:03:35

Key words

18th Century Artistic Movement Date Department Fitz_AA Material Medium Object Type Other Keywords Roccoco Rococo Workflow _WF_AdOK _WF_KWD _WF_OPACtd _WF_PCtd box box lid chased dragonflies dragonfly floral flowers foliage foliate gilt hinged inlaid inlay insects lidded objet de vertu pique point work snuff box tobacco box tortoise-shell tortoiseshell

Citation for print

This page can be cited in the Harvard Bibliographic style using the text below:


            The Fitzwilliam Museum (2025)
            "Tortoise shell snuff box with a lady at her dressing table"
            Web page available at: https://collection.beta.fitz.ms/id/image/media-3726086727 Accessed: 2025-12-05 08:55:59

Citation for Wikipedia

To cite this page on Wikipedia you can use this code snippet:


            {{cite web|url=https://collection.beta.fitz.ms/id/image/media-3726086727
            |title=Tortoise shell snuff box with a lady at her dressing table
            |author=The Fitzwilliam Museum|accessdate=2025-12-05 08:55:59|publisher=The
            University of Cambridge}}

API call for this record

To call these data via our API (remember this needs to be authenticated) you can use this code snippet:

https://collection.beta.fitz.ms/api/v1/images/media-187508

Bootstrap HTML code for reuse

To use this as a simple code embed, copy this string:

<div class="text-center">
    <figure class="figure">
        <img src="https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/imagestore/aa/aa30/M_58_1984_1_201404_amt49_mas.jpg"
        alt="A lady at her dressing table"
        class="img-fluid" />
        <figcaption class="figure-caption text-info">Tortoise shell snuff box with a lady at her dressing table</figcaption>
    </figure>
</div>