A rare embellished silver-gilt and enamelled filigree fan-shaped 'longevity' travelling dressing box and cover, Late Qianlong-Jiaqing, one impressed Chinese mark. Photo courtesy Bonhams

Fashioned in the form of a banana-leaf fan, the cover in two sections folding into a vanity mirror, above a two-door compartment decorated with floral sprays, its underside with a drawer opening horizontally on one side, decorated overall with auspicious designs including bats, butterflies, shou and shuangxicharacters, all on an elaborate swirling gilt-filigree ground, the surface embellished with rubies, sapphires and paste beads, the base with a two-character impressed hallmark. 11.6cm wide; 8.3cm deep; 4.6cm high. Estimate HK$ 100,000 - 150,000 (€9,600 - 14,000)

It is rare to find a lady's accessory box and cover in Chinese filigree. The technique is very complicated, and only in recent years have scholars established that filigree was used quite regularly to create Chinese boxes and containers as early as the Kangxi period. See a paste-inlaid silver filigree jewelry box (fig.1) decorated with similar borders at the sides in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in The Imperial Packing Art of the Qing Dynasty, Beijing, 2002, pp.240-241, no.120. For a more typical example of the later filigree wares made for the Export market, see the flattened card case in an English shape illustrated by John Devereux Kernan, The Chait Collection of Chinese Export Silver, New York, 1975, no.285. 

Bonhams. THE SPEELMAN COLLECTION OF CHINESE 'IMPERIAL TRIBUTE' SNUFF BOXES. Hong Kong. 24 Nov 2013 13:00 CST