10.3cm (4in) x 8.2cm (3.2in) x 2.5cm (1in)
Pressed horn. A Queen Anne snuff box by John Obrisset, the lid pressed with the arms and motto of Sir Francis Drake, 'Sic Parvis Magna’ (Greatness from small beginnings). Signed faintly beneath the motto 'IOHN OBRISSET FECIT’.
John Obrisset (fl. 1705-28), a Huguenot carver, medallist, horn & tortoiseshell worker, was the son of an ivory carver who emigrated to London from Dieppe follolwing the revocation of the Edict of Nantes by Louis XIV in 1685, that ended religious tolerance in France. Obrisset specialized in portraits of English monarchs from Charles I to George II, and depictions of mythological scenes. He made four variants of snuff boxes bearing the arms of the English explorer and privateer Sir Francis Drake, viz - sable, a fess wavy argent bteween 2 estolies argent. Crest, a ship on a globe, guided by the Divine Hand of Providence. These arms were granted to in Drake in 1581 after his circumnavigation of the world.
Reference: Phillips, PAS (1931) ‘John Obrisset and his Works in Horn and Tortoiseshell 1705-1728’, Batsford Press, pp.52-58.