Sèvres snuff box containing the royal pet of a French princess

A gold and porcelain snuff box made in Sèvres for Madame Adelaide, daughter of King Louis XV, will return to the Palace of Versailles for the first time since the French Revolution. Featuring exquisite portraits of royal dogs and cats on the outside, inside and bottom of the lid, it is one of only four Sèvres snuff bottles known to have been made depicting French royal pets. Today, only three of these survive, and only one of the three belonged to another royal princess (Adelaide’s sister, Lady Victoria). The other belonged to Madame de Pompadour, the king’s mistress.

This box has a remarkable and well-documented ownership history. The Royal Sèvres Porcelain Manufactory created an oval ceramic snuff bottle in its signature dark blue hue of lapis lazuli and an engraved gold setting, crafted in 1785 by royal goldsmiths Charles Ouizille and Pierre-François Drais.

Madame Adelaide (1732-1800), the formidable daughter of Louis XV and Queen Marie Leszczynska, commissioned a painting of four dogs and a cat, featuring her white Babette vizier, with his distinctive lion engraved on the lid. One of Sèvres’ finest painters, Nicolas-Pierre Pithou the Younger, created these miniature portraits. The lid depicts the vizier and a pug playing in a garden; at the bottom, greyhounds and spaniels frolic in a wooded landscape. The inside cover features a fluffy black and white cat, the cushion is tied with a pink ribbon and garland, a pair of lanterns hang from a stick, and the dog collar has “Adelaide” engraved on it. The cat is grabbing a ring toy that looks like something you might buy from a pet store today.

Sales records in Sèvres document the various stages of this creation, culminating in a record dated January 19, 1786: “Delivered to Lady Adelaide: 1 blue snuff box inlaid with gold, with a picture of a dog and a cat.” The princess had three years to enjoy snuff from this box before the fall of the Bastille on July 14, 1789, and less than two years later she and her sister Victoria fled France for Rome, taking with them 80 Three followers and a luggage train full of valuables and cash escaped. When the French Revolution invaded Italy in 1796, they had to flee again, this time taking refuge in Naples. In 1799, France invaded Naples. The sisters fled again, first to Corfu and then to Trieste. Adelaide died here on February 27, 1800.

It’s unclear when Adelaide had to give up her puppy Snuffbox. It was next recorded in the collection of Baron Gustave de Rothschild (1829-1911), who inherited the porcelain collection of his father, Baron James de Rothschild, so it was most likely acquired by James (1792-1868). It could have entered the art market after Adelaide’s death, but she could also have sold the snuff box herself while she was in Italy. A British travel writer of the time described how she and Victoria sold their jewelry to support immigrants.

Snuff bottles have been a descendant of the Rothschild family since the 1800s. Its last heir auctioned it on December 2 at Bonhams Auctioneers in London. It sold for £190,900 ($257,000), setting a new world record for a Sèvres box. The non-profit Society of Friends of Versailles acquired it for the national collection.

This snuff box is therefore an extraordinary example of a personal belonging of the royal family, and its history is fully documented, making it a precious testimony of the art of life at the Palace of Versailles in the 18th century.

With this acquisition, the Palace of Versailles enriches an already extraordinary collection of antiquities dedicated to Madame Adelaide and the daughters of Louis XV. Imperial snuff bottles of this quality are highly sought after on the market and are often dismantled to salvage the inlays and gemstones, making them virtually unrecognizable.

The presence of such a prestigious and intimate object in the collection of the Palace of Versailles represents a rare opportunity.