rectangular, right side hinged to reveal strike panel, diamond set thumbpiece, enamelled in translucent powder blue over ruched engine-turning, interior lid inscribed in facsimile script 'X.mas 1916. / Love from / Benjamin.', stamped 'FABERGE', workmaster's mark, '88' zolotnik and St Petersburg, 1908-1917, import marked Fabergé, London, 1912, scratched inventory No.22893, 4.8cm long

Provenance: this box was sold from Fabergé’s premises at 173 New Bond Street, London, to Benjamin Seymour Guinness (1868–1947) on 24 March 1916. Costing £10, it was obviously given as a Christmas present later that year, presumably to his wife, Bridget (née Williams-Bulkeley, 1871-1931). A scion of the banking branch of the Guinness family, Benjamin Guinness was pursuing numerous business interests in New York at the time of this purchase from Fabergé in London. Later the family were often in the south of France, developing a large farmhouse in Mougins, Le Mas Notre-Dame-de-Vie. This property was sold by their son Loel to Pablo Picasso in 1961, where the artist lived until his death.