Joseph II (1741–1790, fig. 2) was the eldest son of the Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa (1717-1780) and Emperor Francis I (1708-1765), Duke of Lorraine and Bar. He became Holy Roman Emperor and co-ruler of the Habsburg dynasty in 1765, and is today considered a member of the grand triumvirate of monarchs of the Enlightenment, the other two being Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia, and Frederick II, King of Prussia, each of whom owned an abundant collection of gold boxes. Joseph II pursued a number of modernising reforms which ultimately led to the political isolation of Austria. Arguably more popular among his contemporaries was his patronage of the arts, especially of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Also known as ‘the musical Emperor’, Joseph II is remembered for commissioning the opera Die Entführung aus dem Serail by Mozart (1782), one of his many attempts to promote opera in German language after a long tradition of Italian opera in Vienna. Having renamed the Burgtheater in Vienna the ‘German National Theatre’ in 1776, he also made several official attempts to make German an official language in Hungary and oriented Austrian culture more towards Germany.

Several gold-mounted hardstone snuff boxes by the Dresden court jeweller Johann Christian Neuber (1736-1808) made between 1770 and 1775, contain profiles of emperors, kings and political officials such as envoys. The present box also falls under the category of snuffboxes set with designs in relief (among them also lot 16 in this sale), of which there are currently ten examples recorded (Alexis Kugel, op. cit., nos. 72-81, pp. 346-348). For some of these gold-mounted hardstone boxes, as with our lot, Neuber combined minerals native to Saxony, such as the patterned Schlottwitz agate and used them alongside more exotic hardstones, like the lapis lazuli bands seen around the outer border of the lid. For a biography on the prolific Dresden court jeweller, see lot 16 in this sale.