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A Russian 19th century gilt-bronze mounted, micro mosaic and miniature inset malachite jewellery boxwith presentation inscription relating to the Czar of Russia and Queen Victoria image 1
A Russian 19th century gilt-bronze mounted, micro mosaic and miniature inset malachite jewellery boxwith presentation inscription relating to the Czar of Russia and Queen Victoria image 2
A Russian 19th century gilt-bronze mounted, micro mosaic and miniature inset malachite jewellery boxwith presentation inscription relating to the Czar of Russia and Queen Victoria image 3
A Russian 19th century gilt-bronze mounted, micro mosaic and miniature inset malachite jewellery boxwith presentation inscription relating to the Czar of Russia and Queen Victoria image 4
A Russian 19th century gilt-bronze mounted, micro mosaic and miniature inset malachite jewellery boxwith presentation inscription relating to the Czar of Russia and Queen Victoria image 5
Lot 76

A Russian 19th century gilt-bronze mounted, micro mosaic and miniature inset malachite jewellery box
with presentation inscription relating to the Czar of Russia and Queen Victoria

Europe - Defining Style
9 July 2015, 14:00 BST
London, New Bond Street

Sold for £20,000 inc. premium

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A Russian 19th century gilt-bronze mounted, micro mosaic and miniature inset malachite jewellery box

with presentation inscription relating to the Czar of Russia and Queen Victoria
the box of rectangular form, the lid inset with a central circular painted pastoral landscape miniature of a milkmaid and companion with a cow, goat and donkey, the corners with two pairs of micro-mosaic circular panels depicting baskets of garden flowers all set within floral cast borders and with floral rose corner mounts, the sides with corresponding D-shaped swing handles, the front with acorn button handle and floral case escutcheon, the part mirror lined interior with green plush borders, on floral paw feet, 32cm wide, 25cm deep, 8.5cm high (12 1/2in wide, 9 1/2in deep, 3in high)

Footnotes

Provenance:
Marie Constance Mallet née Adeane (1861-1934), wife of Sir Bernard Mallet KCB (1859-1932) and Maid of Honour and extra woman of the bedchamber to Queen Victoria 1887-1900.
Maltilde Dita Mallet(1898-1993), daughter of Sir Claude Coventry Mallet KCVO (1860-1941), British Ambassador in Panama at the time of the building of the Panama Canal.
Thence by decent to the present owner.

Although it is unclear when the box was actually presented to Queen Victoria and when Marie Mallet was subsequently gifted the box, the letters and journals of Marie Mallet's life at court are held at Oxford University in the Balliol College Archives and include a reference to her dislike for Alexandra Feodorovna, Empress of Russia who was one of Queen Victoria's favourite grand-daughters and spouse to Czar Nicholas II. As such this correspondence may possibly throw some light on when she came into contact with the Empress although this was almost certainly during a Russian Royal visit in the later years of the 19th century, possibly in Balmoral in 1896 when the box may have been given to the Queen by the Czar. However it is probably more likely that the box was presented to the Queen on an earlier Royal visit to Windsor by Czar Alexander II when he visited Great Britain in 1874 and it was then gifted to Marie Mallet much later in the century.

Literature:
V. Mallet, Life with Queen Victoria - Marie Mallet's Letters from Court 1887-1901, pub. Houghton Mifflin Company 1968.

Additional information

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