$117
Russian silver cigarette case, late 19th c. , the box is silver with a bezel set chalcedony clasp, the chased and repousse lid depicting Ivan Shishkin's 1889 masterpiece "Morning in a Pine Forest" (currently hanging in the Tretyakov Gallery), marks in Cyrillic inside, 4 1/4" h., 3 1/2" w., together with silver cigarette case with engraved portrait of a young girl with a teddy bear on the front, inscribed "Amara 1917", with signature possibly in Arabic, marked "Randolph & Co., London" and 3 hallmarks, the inside engraved "Lieut. R.C. Alwin M.G.C. (MGC stands for Machine Gun Corps, initially formed in 1915, "Amara" is Kut-al-Amara, a garrison town on the Tigris River between Basra and Baghdad that was first taken by the British in 1915, then retaken by the Ottoman Empire after a lengthy siege in April 1916,, then recaptured by the British in February, 1917), 3 1/4" h., 3 1/4" w. Accompanying this lot is the original photo upon which the engraving is based.
Auctioneer:
Pook & Pook
Date:
2006-09-08
