EARLY 19TH CENTURY

Details

A GERMAN ORMOLU-MOUNTED BLUE-PAINTED STEEL TRIPOD PERFUME-BURNER
Early 19th Century
The later circular white-speckled red porphyry veneered top with a kidney-shaped opening in the middle, above a moulded panelled frieze with two swans drinking out of a fountain, flanked by vases with dragon-handles and surmounted by a lion-trophy, fitted with a brass container above a rounded pierced coal-basket decorated with repoussé mounts of scrolling flowers and foliage and ending in a pine-cone, on square tapering legs with stop-fluted burning torches and terminating in giltwood lion-paw feet
32 in. (81 cm.) high; 22¼ in. (56.5 cm.) diameter

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.

Lot Essay

The perfume-burner or 'athenienne' is conceived as a festive Grecian tripod altar celebrating Love's triumph. Deriving from its Bacchic thyrsus-finiale, the tazza is fitted between tripod feet, which terminate in Bacchic lion paws. While the legs are enriched with bas-reliefs of Hymen's palm-flowered torches, the tazza displays tablets of bacchic trophies in pedestal-supported and swan-guarded urns, and these alternate with palm-flowered swans drinking at a fountain. The swans evoke the triumphal chariot of Venus as Nature deity. Its Bacchic pattern derives from Percier and Fontaine's, Recueil de décorations, published in 1801.

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