The Trustees of THE LUTON HOO FOUNDATION (Lots 32-5)
A LOUIS XV ORMOLU-MOUNTED CHINESE CELADON PORCELAIN POT-POURRI VASE AND COVER, the domed, stepped lid surmounted by a spiralling foliate-spray finial above a channelled C-scroll and acanthus collar, the pierced frieze cast with channelled C-scrolls and acanthus, the bulbous body incised with chrysanthemums and foliate-arabesques and flanked by pierced channelled C-scroll and acanthus-cast handles, above an asymmetrical pierced rockwork, C-scroll and acanthus base with similar foliate-trails, the mounts struck five times with the Ç Coronné poincon, with handwritten label to the underside 1235, restorations to the lid, the porcelain Kangxi

Details
A LOUIS XV ORMOLU-MOUNTED CHINESE CELADON PORCELAIN POT-POURRI VASE AND COVER, the domed, stepped lid surmounted by a spiralling foliate-spray finial above a channelled C-scroll and acanthus collar, the pierced frieze cast with channelled C-scrolls and acanthus, the bulbous body incised with chrysanthemums and foliate-arabesques and flanked by pierced channelled C-scroll and acanthus-cast handles, above an asymmetrical pierced rockwork, C-scroll and acanthus base with similar foliate-trails, the mounts struck five times with the Ç Coronné poincon, with handwritten label to the underside 1235, restorations to the lid, the porcelain Kangxi
14¾in. (37.5cm.) wide; 14½in. (37cm.) high
Provenance
Acquired by Sir Julius Wernher, Bt. (d. 1912), Bath House, Piccadilly.
Thence by descent at Luton Hoo, Bedfordshire

Lot Essay

The C couronné poinçon was a tax mark employed on any alloy containing copper between March 1745 and February 1749

A Louis XV Chinese powder-blue porcelain pot-pourri with extremely closely related base, handle and finial mounts from Wrotham Park, Hertfordshire, was sold by Julian Byng, Esq. in these Rooms, 10 June 1993, lot 100. A further related celadon pot-pourri from the Rudolphe Kann Collection is now in the Collis Potter Huntington Memorial Collection in the Palace of the Legion of Honour, San Francisco, California (illustrated in D.F. Lunsingh Scheurleer, Chinesisches und Japanisches Porzellan in europäïschen Fassungen, Braunschweig, 1980, p. 323, no. 304).

The C Couronné poinçon does not appear on each individual piece of ormolu and this would seem to indicate that the celebrated group of related Louis XV ormolu-mounted celadon porcelain vases and pots-pourris were first made after the repeal of the tax in February 1749, but largely using mounts made within the period of the tax. Ormolu-mounted oriental porcelain was the height of fashion at this date and the marchand-mercier Lazare Duvaux supplied such pots-pourris, for example Deux pots pourris céladon, montés en bronze doré d'or moulu, 288 livres for the Comtesse de Bentleim on 15 December 1756.

Undoubtedley executed with the following lot, in the same atelier, it is certainly possibl that this vase and the pair of pots-pourris were conceived as a garniture

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