The snuffbox features a cylindrical body made of blue aventurine glass with golden speckles and a detachable lid. In the center of the lid, under a glass, there is an oval portrait miniature depicting the Duke of Brissac in the uniform of the Colonel of the "Cent-Suisses" (Hundred Swiss) Regiment and with the blue sash of the Royal Order of the Holy Spirit (Saint-Esprit). The miniature is executed in watercolor and gouache on ivory in shades of blue and gray, framed by a rim of three-colored gold with a chased pattern of foliate scrolls, beads, and oves on a matted ground.Under the lid, there is a tobacco compartment with marks on the mirror-polished surface of the base and the rim. The bottom panel of the base and the side surface are decorated with a golden border with a chased relief foliate ornament along the edge. On the rim, there is an engraving with an erroneous identification of the identity in the portrait — “Peter The Great”. The person depicted on the lid is Louis Hercule Timoléon de Cossé, Duc de Brissac (1734–1792). He held a high position at the courts of Kings Louis XV and Louis XVI, was the Governor of Paris and the Commander-in-Chief of the Constitutional Guard of Louis XVI. He was one of those who suffered a painful death in Versailles at the hands of a mob during the massacre of September 9, 1792.

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