This early 19th century gold snuff box was reputedly given as a gift by Tsar Alexander I of Russia.
The recipient was the French mineralogist Abbé Rene-Just Haüy, regarded as the founder of the science of crystallography through his discovery of the geometrical law of crystallisation.
Incidentally, his brother Valentin Haüy founded the Institute for Blind Youth in Paris, which was attended by Louis Braille in 1819.