A Guandong gilded bronze, glass and seed-pearl-inlaid oval snuff box, late 18th century , the cover set with a pearls and a profusion of bright glass beads simulating gems, with two butterflies hovering amid flowers, all around a pink glass knob, the gilded body engraved with cartouches featuring European figural and maritime scenes, the base with European instruments and weapons, 8.5cm wide å八世纪晚期 é“œéŽé‡‘嵌玻璃çç è¥¿æ´‹äººç‰©æ•…事图鼻烟盒
 -720 This exquisite box exemplifies the remarkable fusion of European and Chinese taste that characterised the finest art production of 18th century China. Rectangular and oval shaped boxes were in fact popular features in early 18th century Britain, as was the practice of embossing rectangular cartouches with scenes recalling classical or mythological scenes and the musical instruments and weapons, finely incised on the base. On the other hand, the penchant for bright glass and seed pears was highly favoured by the Qianlong emperor as it could also be noted on elaborate Guandong clocks. The brightly glittering inlaid glass and seed pearls are very much in the taste of the Qianlong court, and can be compared for example to similarly decorated and highly elaborate clocks of predominantly Guangdong manufacture, some also combining European pastoral scenes with Chinese decorative elements such as the double gourd or qilin: see for example The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum: Scientific and Technical Instruments of the Qing Dynasty, Hong Kong, 1998, nos.217, 220, 222. 

Related snuff boxes from the Speelman Collection were sold in our Hong Kong rooms, 24 November 2013, lot 15 with chased European landscapes, and lot 18 of hinged oval form and heavily inlaid on the cover, both dated to the Qianlong period. Snowman, Eighteenth Century Gold Boxes of Europe, 1966, p.93 and The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum: Scientific and Technical Instruments of the Qing Dynasty, 1998, n.217, 220, 222.