An unusual gold and enamel étui, attributed to James Bellis, London, circa 1765

Christie's London, 28 November 1978, lot 137

Although the present etui is unsigned, the stylistic similarity to a signed example and the extremely high quality of the polychrome basse-taille enamel flower sprays tied with blue ribbons, in combination with a delicately engine-turned and chased gold, allow for an attribution to the elusive English goldsmith and/or retailer James Bellis. Gold boxes and objects by Bellis are extremely rare: for a signed gold and enamel snuff box joyfully decorated in polychrome enamels - from the same private collection as the present lot - see Sotheby’s London, 10 December 2020, lot 13.

Another snuff box of somewhat comparable design and construction, formerly in the collection of the Comtesse de Ribes sold Sotheby’s Paris, Collection Ribes I, 11 December 2019, lot 50.

Bellis has caused scholarly speculations as to whether he was a manufacturing goldsmith/goldworker or a retailer. Born in 1721, Bellis was the son of Samuel, a vicar of Ashton-on-Mersey, near Manchester. He called himself a jeweller and toyman (the eighteenth-century equivalent of a retailer of luxury goods), but he had also officially entered his mark at Goldsmiths' Hall in 1760. Several objects of vertu supplied by Bellis at the beginning of his career had soon found their way into the luxurious and curious display of Bertrand’s toyshop in Bath (Vanessa Brett, Bertrand’s Toyshop in Bath, Luxury Retailing 1685-1765, 2014, p. 214). This ‘toyshop’, offered luxurious, rare and curious small objects (‘toys’) to the wealthy clientele visiting Bath, one of the most fashionable British spa towns at the time.