BY LOUIS SIRIÈS (FL. CIRCA 1686-AFTER 1766), FLORENCE, CIRCA 1730, SIGNED ON THE FLANGE 'LOUIS SIRIES' AND WITH THE MONOGRAM 'L S'

This box is one of four known hardstones snuff-boxes bearing Louis Siriès' signature made in the second quarter of the 18th century when Siriès worked between Florence and Paris. This group includes one box in lapis lazuli (in a private collection); another in lapis lazuli, the cover overlaid with pierced flower garland (ill. in Snowman, Eighteenth Century Gold Boxes, 1990, p. 407, pl. 895); and one in agate with mounts chased with hunting scenes similar to this box, sold Christie's, Geneva, 14 May 1991, lot 26.
Louis Siriès (circa 1686-after 1766) was the most important gem engraver, hardstone-carver and goldsmith to the Grand Duke of Florence. Born in France sometimes around 1686, he moved to Florence around 1709. From 1718, his name appears in the account books of the Electress Palatine Anna Maria Luisa, for commissions of silver and gold snuffboxes decorated with tortoiseshell, jasper, lapis lazuli and bloodstone. However, in 1722 he appears in Thomas Germain's workshop in Paris where he worked as an apprentice. By 1732, he was back in Florence with the title of orfèvre du Roy Louis XV. In 1748, Siriès was appointed director of the imperial gallery, the Real Galleria di Firenze, and director of the Galleria dei Lavori pietra dura factory, a position that was subsequently occupied by members of the Siriès family for four generations. He was also employed as a die-cutter at the mints of Florence and Pisa and published the Catalogue des pierres gravées par Louis Siriès, Orfèvre du Roi de France, présentement directeur des ouvrages en pierres dures de la galerie de S.M. Impériale à Florence in 1757, from which the empress Maria-Theresa bought all 168 gems, now mostly in the Kunsthistorische Museum in Vienna.