CIRCA 1675, UNMARKED

Boxes depicting King Charles I certainly were extant during the King's lifetime as shown in the letters of the Royalist Thomas Knyvett, 5th Baron Berners (1596–1658). In 1640 Knyvett wrote to his wife 'to send by this bearer towe Hollingsworth Tobaccoe boxes with the King's picture of silver.' B. Schofield ed., The Knyvett Letters, 1620-1644, London, 1949, p. 100, however, dating these boxes remains a subject for debate. A silver tobacco box of identical design to the present example, is cited by Timothy Schroder in his catalogue entry of an identical gold example in, Gold and Silver in the Gilbert Collection, Los Angeles, 1988, no. 23. It is struck with the maker's mark BB for a silversmith active from 1673 to 1683. It seems probably therefore that these boxes, including the present lot, were commemorative and date from the reign of King Charles II.