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Pook & Pook Inc
Live Auction

Decorative Arts

Fri, Sep 8, 2006 09:00AM EDT
Lot 633

Russian silver cigarette case, late 19th c., the b

Estimate: $500 - $800
Sold for

Bid Increments

Price Bid Increment
$0 $25
$500 $50
$1,000 $100
$2,000 $200
$5,000 $500
$10,000 $1,000
$20,000 $2,000
$50,000 $5,000
$100,000 $10,000
$200,000 $20,000
$500,000 $50,000
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.