Earlyish 19th Century Lacquered Snuff Box in Tortoiseshell Paint balancing it really could not be

it really could not be formally and compositionally better

and there are two that are chipped

with its big dark sky enveloping what looks like a western frontier structure to me

M Goodspeed

with richly saturated color on a warm cream stock

Earlyish 19th Century Lacquered Snuff Box in Tortoiseshell Paint balancing it really could not beI'm glad for tobacco in the sense that it gave rise to so many lovely snuff boxes to love now. And with so many produced in such variety, quite a nice and endlessly rewarding! thing to collect. It's the cumulative effect of shape and scalloped lid and lacquered surface on this one that does it for me making the hinged, papier mache box look not just like tortoiseshell, but in fact rather like the shell of a tortoise (as if his head and tail might