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Snuffbox mounted with a timepiece
Snuffbox mounted with a timepiece

Snuffbox mounted with a timepiece

John and George Hannett (English, active in London, about 1730–1790)
about 1765
Medium/TechniqueAgate, gold mounts
DimensionsHeight x width: 6.7 × 5.1 × 5.1 cm (2 5/8 × 2 × 2 in.)
Credit LineGift of the heirs of Bettina Looram de Rothschild
Accession number2013.1746
On View
Not on view
ClassificationsJewelry / Adornment
Collections
ProvenanceBy 1938, Alphonse de Rothschild (b. 1878 – d. 1942) and Clarice de Rothschild (b. 1894 – d. 1967), Vienna; 1938, confiscated from Alphonse and Clarice de Rothschild by Nazi forces (no. AR 1102) [see note 1]; taken to the Kunsthistorisches Museum and stored at the Central Depot, Neue Burg, Vienna; October 5, 1942, given over to the Federal Monuments Office, Vienna and later removed to the monastery of Kremsmünster and subsequently to Alt Aussee; 1945, recovered by Allied forces; October 16, 1947, returned to Clarice de Rothschild, New York [see note 2]; by descent to her daughter, Bettina Looram de Rothschild (b. 1924 - d. 2012); about 1990/1992, given by Bettina Looram de Rothschild to members of her family; 2013, gift of the heirs of Bettina Looram de Rothschild to the MFA. (Accession Date: December 18, 2013)

NOTES:
[1] With the Anschluss, or annexation of Austria to Nazi Germany in March, 1938, the possessions of Alphonse and Clarice de Rothschild were seized and expropriated almost immediately by Nazi forces. This snuff box appears in a Nazi-generated inventory of 1939 as no. AR (Alphonse Rothschild) 1102: "Achatdose, achtseitig mit Goldfassung, am Boden Figur in Rocaillen, unter dem runden Deckel Ührchen, Werk von Hauet [sic], London." Katalog beschlagnahmter Sammlungen, inbesondere der Rothschild-Sammlungen in Wien, Verlags-Nr. 4938, Staatsdruckerei Wien, 1939, Privatarchiv, reproduced in Sophie Lillie, "Was einmal war: Handbuch der enteigneten Kunstsammlungen Wiens" (Vienna, 2003), p. 1039.

[2] This box was catalogued at the Central Depot, and given over to the Federal Monuments Office in 1942. Card no. AR 1102, Bundesdenkmalamt, Vienna, available on the website of the Zentral Depot Karteien online. It was probably among the many works of art stored elsewhere by the Nazis, which were moved to the abandoned salt mines of Alt Aussee in Austria, to be kept safe from wartime bombing. Allied troops recovered the looted artwork at the end of World War II, and established collecting points where the art could be identified for restitution to its rightful owners. In 1947 Clarice de Rothschild visited the salt mines at Alt Aussee, where she was able to identify the crates of works of art from her family’s collection, facilitating its return shortly thereafter. The date of return is noted on the Central Depot card.