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| Snuffbox with Watch and Automaton Scene James Cox, c. 1765 This and all related images from the Victoria & Albert Museum. |
James Cox was known as the best of the Eighteenth Century London makers of automata and elegant collectible “toys.” Cox’s trade card boasts that he made “a great variety of curious work in gold, silver, and other metals also in amber, pearl, tortoiseshell and curious stones.” By 1772, James Cox had launched a museum in Westminster which was designed to display some of his automata.
This curious box from the Gilber Collection dates to about 1765 and is the work of James Cox. The rectangular, gold-mounted, hardstone snuffbox features an automaton as well as a watch.
The box’s cover, three of its walls and base are set with panels of moss agate which have been mounted in gold chased with scrolls. The front of the box is comprised of a beveled glass panel with a white enamel watch dial.
The back panel opens to reveal a landscape which has been painted in oils with two apertures through which are visible, when rotated by the clockwork mechanism, a man on a donkey, a lady in an interior, a bird in a tree and a hen. The upper rim of the box is mounted gold which has been chased with foliage, while the lower rim is rich with a layer of guilloche.
Curiously, there are NO pictures of the automaton scene. I wonder why.
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