Louis XVI Snuff Box, Ath 1789, Sterling Silver And Vermeil

Lovely snuff box from the Louis XVI period in sterling silver with an impeccable vermeil interior with the hallmarks of the city of Ath in Hainaut and with a 1789 vintage hallmark. Its master silversmith also brought his hallmark to the piece but he  is currently unidentified. Rather large in size, its format suggests that it is a snuff box for men. In several documents of the time we see that their authors made the difference between the boxes intended for gentlemen and those intended for ladies. The goldsmiths of the city of Ath had great difficulty meeting their living needs with orders from local customers. This is why they specialized in the manufacture of what their contemporaries called "ménuties", i.e. small silver objects which could be easily exported to other towns in the Austrian Netherlands to be sold there on the annual markets or at merchants-mercers. This is why the hallmark of the city of Ath is clearly overrepresented on many'snuff boxes, fly boxes, shoe buckles and other costume buttons found on eighteenth-century Belgian goldsmith production.