Provenance

As a seasoned campaigner Napoleon travelled with every possible necessity for eating, dressing, grooming, writing, surveying, map-making, dental and physical health. These items, created in an elegant, pared-down style, usually in silver gilt, were packed with ingenuity into numbered mahogany boxes or necessaires, many of the works fitting inside others.

Genu came from a dynasty of goldsmiths. He first entered his hallmark in 1788 and originally worked from a workshop rented by his father, close to the rue Saint-Honore. Genu frequently worked with the 'tabletier' Biennais, supplying travelling cases fitted with silver and silver-gilt objects to careful specifications, using neoclassical decorative motifs. His work appeared in services supplied to Napoleon himself as well as members of the imperial family: Josephine Bonaparte, Pauline Borghese and Napoleon II, King of Rome.

Purchased by Queen Mary