A rare Birmingham or South Staffordshire bonbonnière

A rare Birmingham or South Staffordshire bonbonnière,

c.1766-70, modelled as the head of a snow leopard, its creamy coat decorated with grey and black spots, the hinged lid printed in black with two putti embracing beside a hollow tree stump, gilt metal mounts, 6cm long.

The mould for this box is usually decorated as a conventional leopard, but the first illustration of a snow leopard (by Georges Buffon in his Natural History of 1766) presumably provided the inspiration for this lot. The print of two putti is by Simon François Ravenet, after James Gwin.