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| Enamel tiger bonbonnière, c. 1760 (5.8cm diameter). Sold at Bonham's in 2011 for £4,500. Originally from the Mort & Moira Lesser collection. |
This cheeky, grinning tiger is beautifully painted with glowing teeth and slicked-back whiskers in vibrant magenta and white. He is one of several creatures included in the menagerie of eighteenth-century enamels made in Birmingham and Bilston in about the 1760s and 1770s. These were bonbonnières (sweet boxes), which were larger containers to the pill and patch boxes produced at a similar time.
The lid (below) is hinged and simply mounted onto the box, and decorated with a hunting scene, with a pyramid or obelisk behind the tiger, all framed in colourful scrolling. Many boxes depicting large cats included hunting scenes on the lid, perhaps influenced by well-known prints produced 150 years previously by Antonio Tempesta, an Italian painter and engraver (see lion boxes).
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| Lid of the tiger bonbonnière (above). |
Box 2
This tiger bonbonnière (below) is painted in a much simpler manner, so was possibly produced later (c. 1780) for a wider market. Many boxes of the same shape were painted as dog's heads, so this may possibly be a stripy dog, but either way the interchange between different animals shows how the makers of these used the moulded copper bases to produce a variety of designs. This tiger (stripy dog) was sold as a gift from Margate (lid below).
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| Enamelled tiger bonbonnière, c. 1780, made in Birmingham or South Staffordshire. From a private collection. |
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| Lid of above, with 'A Margate Gift' transfer-printed onto the enamel. |