Rectangular box with rounded corners, the cover set with an enamel miniature after Charles Monnet depicting Mentor and Idomeneus, within a chased foliate border set with seed-pearls on a blue enamel ground, the base set with an enamel panel in a red and blue chequer pattern within chased gold frames, the sides with taille d'épargne sky-blue enamel panels set with scrolling gold and blue enamel foliage and red enamel chevrons, the base with a winding square
3¹⁄₄ in. (82 mm.) wide

Farouk I, King of Egypt (1936-1965) until 1952
Sotheby & Co., The Palace Collections of Egypt, Koubbeh Palace, Cairo, March 12, 1954, lot 545.
His Highness Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan; Sotheby's, London, 18 June 1979, lot 64.

H. Ricketts, Objects of Vertu, London, 1971, p.72.

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Lot Essay

The miniature featured on this snuff-box is after an engraving by Jean-Baptiste Tilliard after Charles Monnet dated 1785 and called 'Mentor fait faire à Idoménée des règlements pour les Arts et la police dans Salente'. This engraving illustrated François de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon's (1651–1715) novel Les aventures de Télémaque first published anonymously in 1699. The book recounts the educational travels of Telemachus, son of Ulysses, accompanied by his tutor, Mentor, the book's true hero who denounced war, luxury and selfishness and was a disguised satire on the autocratic reign of Louis XIV.
The scene depicts King Idomeneus showing Telemachus and Mentor all his luxurious building projects for Salentum (Italy). Eventually Mentor was instructed by Idomeneus to design and implement a reconstruction program to restore the kingdom to ‘a noble simplicity and frugality’.
Although Fénelon was eventually banished by Louis XIV from Versailles, the book was a best seller in France and abroad for many decades, and inspired numerous artists including Mozart who used the plot in 1781 for his opera Idomeneo.
This musical snuff-box was part of the famed collection of King Farouk of Egypt which comprised many fine examples of Swiss enamelled gold musical and automaton boxes.

The quality of the enamelling attest to the skills and inventiveness of Jean-Georges Rémond, one of Geneva's most celebrated casemakers. Born in Hanau in 1752, Rémond moved to Geneva in 1783 where he was registered as 'a jeweller from Hanau'. He formed throughout his career various companies with other goldsmiths recorded as “pour exercer le commerce de bijouterie et horlogerie”, which excelled in elaborate gold cases for watches and snuff boxes, often destined for the export to the Orient. Rémond worked for Piguet & Capt, Jaquet-Droz & Leschot, Frisard and Les Frères Rochat who designed the mechanical elements while the cases were often decorated with enamel scenes by Lissignol, Richter, Dupont and others generally depicting classical scenes after renowned paintings.