This set of miniature biscuit boxes was made in Amsterdam around 1790 by Pieter van Somerwil II. They are pictured here next to their large example, which was made in Amsterdam in 1790 by Jan Buysen.

Rarely do we come across a pair of miniature biscuit boxes, but we can now offer you both the miniature and the large pair. 

Silver biscuit boxes were always sold in pairs: one round and one rectangular box. A bill by the Peirolet brothers (shopkeepers from Amsterdam) dating from 1782, reveals that round boxes were initially meant to store the traditionally round-baked Dutch biscuit rusks, while the rectangular boxes were used for rolled wafers, then known as ‘oublies’. These wafers were hawked on the streets by ‘oublie’-peddlers. Paintings as early as those by Pieter Breugel the Elder (1525 – 1569) depict these peddlers, carrying biscuit barrels on their backs, from which wafers are being proffered.