The combination of gold work, enamelling, music, automata and time-piece places this in the rarest class of boxes made in Geneva during the early years of the nineteenth century.

The case is the work of one of Geneva's most celebrated casemakers, Jean-Georges Rémond or Reymond who created cases for Jaquet-Droz & Leschot, Frisard, les Frères Rochat and Piguet & Capt.
Isaac Piguet (1775-1841) was the first to create in 1802 a miniature musical piece in the form of a ring following the idea of Geneva watchmaker Antoine Favre (1767-1828) in 1796. Piguet went into partnership with his brother-in-law Henry Capt (1773-1841) from 1802-1811, specialising in musical and automaton watches such as this snuff-box often intended for the Chinese and Ottoman markets.
In 1811, Piguet founded Piguet & Meylan with Philippe Samuel Meylan and together they produced elaborate and beautifully decorated musical watches, including skeleton and automaton watches, and mechanical animals. In 1828, the association ended and Isaac and his son David-Auguste Piguet established a new company, Piguet Père & Fils. In 1832 the company was dissolved and the commercial part was taken over by Charles Philippe Piguet de Morges while the technical part continued under Piguet & Cie directed by David Auguste. Isaac-Daniel Piguet died in Geneva, on January 20, 1841.

The subject on the lid is based on a painting by Jean Restout (1692-1768), Hector's farewell to Andromache, painted for the Concours de peinture of 1727. The picture remains in the artist family and was recorded in Restout's son's collection in 1783. The work was subsequently lost until it reappeared at auction in the 1990s (Christie's, New York, 31 January 1997, lot 81).
The scene is taken after Homer's Iliad (6:394-496) as Hector, the son of Priam King of Troy, and commander of the Trojan armies said farewell at the gates of Troy to his wife Andromache and his infant son Astyanax on the eve of battle where he would be killed by Achilles.
The enduring popularity of Restout's painting is confirmed by the large number of copies but also the various objets d'arts decorated in the eighteenth century with designs taken after the present composition, especially pocket watches and snuffboxes such as this one (see C. Bailey, in the catalogue of the exhibition, The Loves of the Gods: Mythological Paintings from Watteau to David, Paris, Philadelphia, Fort Worth, Oct. 15 1991, Aug. 2, 1992, pp. 222-9, under no. 34, p. 229, fig. 4).


Les adieux d'Andromache et d'Hector, Jean Restout, 1727 © Christie's.