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"A la belle de Lavaliere" Bonbonnière

Applied Arts
Inventory number
2020.11.9.14.AA.BX.C1830.FR
Description
Book imitating rectangular candy or jewellery box in cardboard, framed in golden embossed paper on the sides, decorated on the lid with a reverse glass painting representing a fashionable woman dressed in red and gold gown with a white underskirt, wearing a golden jewellery parure consisting of a pair of bracelets, a necklace, a pair of earrings and a headband. She is standing and holding a letter signed "A la belle de Lavalière". On the back there is a bouquet of roses with stems and other flowers in the same technique. Inside, a mercury mirror is glued to the lid.

Françoise Louise de La BAUME Le BLANC, Demoiselle then Duchess of La VALLIERE and de VAUJOURS (1644 - 1710), was a French aristocrat known for having been the first official mistress of King Louis XIV. He left her for Madame de MONTESPAN and she will retire to the Carmelite convent of the faubourg Saint-Jacques. Her romance with Louis XIV is quickly telling in detail in a successful books such as "La Duchesse de La Vallière" written in 1804 by Countess Félicité de GENLIS, or "Le Vicomte de Bragelonne" by Alexandre DUMAS in 1846.
She symbolized, according to Sainte-Beuve, the "perfect lover", the one who loves in order to love, without pride or caprice, without ambition or vanity, and whose sensitivity does not hide the firmness of heart. She becomes under the restoration the feminine symbol of impossible love, theme received from the Romantic movement.
Materials
Cardboard
Glass
Embossed paper
Mercury mirror
Origin
circa 1830 France
Dimensions
Width : 14 cm
Length : 9 cm
Height : 2.8 cm