FINE FRENCH TOBACCO BOX, LATE 18th TO EARLY 19th CENTURY

Circular, 3 5/8” diameter of two rounded edge sections. The base in imitation of ivory and the top finely painted in genre scene entitled La Priere (The Prayer). Four adults (one cradling a baby) seated at a table while the left, male, says grace. Beautifully detailed and fitted with an edge ring for wall hanging, evidently from its time of purchase as it shows no use with picture in perfect preservation. The period is of the French Revolution, Napoleonic Wars and the repression following. This would have represented a significant cost to a family of modest means and probably was to only painting that they owned. Its spiritual theme and soothing subject probably represented a refuge from those traumatic decades.