A gold-mounted amethystine quartz bonbonniere, German, circa 1760

The Collection of Sadie W. Stauffer, Easton, Pennsylvania;

sold, Sotheby's New York, 11 December 1996, lot 38;

Bulgari, Rome

Bonbonnières in the form of pugs were popular in mid-eighteenth century Germany, made both in hardstone and in Meissen porcelain. The type of hardstone which was most favoured appears to have been amethystine quartz, as in this example, perhaps because the graduating tones allowed for more interesting contrasts and colour graduations resembling the animal's fur in real life. For a snuff box of the same material and period representing a reclining pug with a diamond-collar, see for example Bonham's London, 18 December 2020, lot 1.

Other curious shapes for snuff boxes made in Dresden in the 1760s include goats, panthers and other predators. There was an additional symbolic element to pug-shaped boxes because the Mopsorden or 'Order of the Pug' was a Catholic Masonic society said to have been founded in 1740 by Elector Clemens August of Bavaria. Novices were obliged to wear a dog collar to their initiation rites and to scratch at the door for entry.