A mid-18th century silver portrait snuff box

A mid-18th century silver portrait snuff box,

maker's mark P.W, attributed to Peter Wirgman, and with a lion passant, London circa 1750,

circular from, the hinged cover set with a commemorative medallion of Princess Maria Clementina Sobieska, by O. Hamerani, diameter 7cm, approx. weight 3.7oz.

Provenance: The Lion Collection, no. 155

Illustrated in Culme, J. British Silver Boxes 1640-1840, The Lion Collection, Antique Collector's Club, 2015, page 145.

Princess Maria Sobieska (1702-1735), was the granddaughter of John II Sobieska of Poland. In 1719 she was married to James Francis Edward Stuart, ('The Old Pretender'), 1688-1766), son of the deposed James II. The couples elder son was Charles Edward Louis Philip Casimir Stuart, ('the Young Pretender'), 1720-1788, generally known as 'Bonnie Prince Charlie', who instigated the Jacobite uprising of 1745.