This is such an exquisite little box. I can't believe how beautifully made it is. It has a good bit of age to it. I think that on stylistic evidence the box dates to the 1830s, and it is possibly French or German in origin.
I am not sure what this little box was intended for - but it is certainly a vanity item for a lady. It has a little mirror in the lid section, perhaps it originally contained a little pot of rouge or perhaps used to store little earrings, studs or trinkets on a dressing table.
I love the intricate shape of the box - and it is hard to believe that it was made of blue-coloured cardboard and is now nearly 200 years old - I have struggled to find another quite like it.
The wee box is made of a firm card and decorated around all the edges with brass gilt strips with faux rivets and inside the box, there are more banding sections - applied to hold the mirror in place. The mirror on the interior is located in the lid - and it is a small antique silvered one - which has darkened with age. Again, another indicator of the age of this special little box.
The exterior lid has a little early 1830s watercolour painting on it. The colours are still all nice and bright with hardly any fading and it is covered with a slightly curved glass to protect the little painting below.
It is a strange image. It features a lady dressed in a fashionable 1830s scarlet red dress with large puffed "mutton sleeves". She is in a chair out in the garden - her mansion house is seen in the mid-distance to the left. She watches a little boy playing in the garden - and wags her finger to chastise him. He seems to be playing at "dressing up as a soldier". He wears a strange white hat that looks like a homemade paper bicorne one - and carries a little stick with a red and white pennon attached at the top. This particular pennon would have been flown on the top of lances by either British or French lancers serving at Waterloo.
In France at this time - popular interest in Napoleon was starting to ascend again. The revolutions in France of 1830 and 1848 revived Napoleon I’s reputation, and he came to be seen more often as a symbol of enlightened progress and military expertise than of dictatorship and defeat. Even in England, there was a surge in collecting Napoleonica and Queen Victoria was known to have purchased items relating to him. The French were calling for the return of the Emperior's body from his resting place at St Helena.
So I would suspect that the incident depicted might be linked to a new romantic view of the former French ruler in the 1830s.
Regardless of my speculation here on the subject - the little box is Continental and dates to the 1830s. It is in good condition for its age - and I have taken a lot of images for your inspection. My asking price reflects its age, attractiveness, and rarity value. Probably an item for a specialist box collector.
Postage in the UK will be with Royal Mail Recorded. This will cost £4.95 and applied to your order at the checkout.