Enamel Menagerie Nᵒ.9: Squirrel Boxes

Enamel squirrel bonbonnière, c. 1765-70.
Sold at Bonham's in 2011 for £2,250. Originally from
the Mort & Moira Lesser collection. (6 cm high)

An enamelled red squirrel sitting upright and nibbling at a nut, with additional nuts depicted in the grass (see below). It was probably made in Birmingham, Bilston or Wednesbury and was part of range of creatures produced between in about the 1760s and 1770s, see the rest of the enamel menagerie.

The hinged lid is oval shaped (below), with another red squirrel depicted on a branch, transfer printed and over-painted.

Lid of red squirrel bonbonnière.

The squirrel image on the lid was developed from A Book of Birds & Squirrels &c. (c. 1758) which was a selection of six sheets taken from prints by Francis Barlow (c. 1626-1704), re-engraved, and published by Robert Sayer. These sheets cost 6d for the set of six, affordable for an enamellers workshop and lots of enamel boxes made in the Birmingham and Staffordshire areas are found using imagery from these and dozens of other sets of prints published by Sayer. Sayer later published these, and new, sets together in The Ladies Amusement. 

A Book of Birds & Squirrels &c. (c. 1758).
Later included in the Ladies Amusement published by Sayer.

See all of the enamel menagerie: here. Find out more about eighteenth-century enamelling: here.