Snuffbox
1738–44
Medium
Soft-paste porcelain, silver
Dimensions
1 1/2 × 3 1/8 in. (3.8 × 7.9 cm)
Classification
Ceramics-Porcelain
Culture
French, Saint-Cloud
Department
European Sculpture and Decorative Arts
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gift of R. Thornton Wilson, in memory of Florence Ellsworth Wilson, 1950
Accession Number
50.211.284
Tags
About the Artist
Saint-Cloud factory · 1693–1766
The Saint-Cloud porcelain factory, situated on the Seine in the town of Saint-Cloud near Paris, revolutionized European ceramics as the first to manufacture soft-paste porcelain commercially, beginning in 1693. Originally established around 1664-1666 as a faience workshop, it shifted to porcelain under Pierre Chicaneau, a potter whose experiments yielded a frit-based paste with a warm yellowish or...