Lot Essay
These striking vases, with their elaborately fretted bases, reflect the elegant taste for chinoiserie promoted by the Parisian marchand mercier Dominique Daguerre, most notably for his most important English patron George, Prince of Wales, who is recorded as employing Daguerre in 1787 to help furnish Carlton House. Their bases are strongly reminiscent of those on a pair of candelabra, originally ordered as a set of eight by the Prince's architect Henry Holland in 1789 for the Chinese Room at Carlton House, and almost certainly supplied by Daguerre (see H. Roberts et al., Carlton House: The Past Glories of George IV's Palace, exh. cat., London, 1991, pp. 104-5).
The avant garde chinoiserie furniture and bronzes d'ameublement supplied for the Chinese Room at Carlton House, which prefigured the renewed interest for chinoiserie of the Regency period, included the famous Chinese drummer boy clock, with similar fretted base, and recorded in an inventory drawn up by the English clock-maker Vulliamy as being part 'of a suite of ornaments made expressly for that room', and an extraordinary pair of consoles desserte by Weisweiler, one of Daguere's favourite ébénistes, and also featuring similar fretted gilt-bronze ornament (see Roberts op. cit., pp. 103-4).
The avant garde chinoiserie furniture and bronzes d'ameublement supplied for the Chinese Room at Carlton House, which prefigured the renewed interest for chinoiserie of the Regency period, included the famous Chinese drummer boy clock, with similar fretted base, and recorded in an inventory drawn up by the English clock-maker Vulliamy as being part 'of a suite of ornaments made expressly for that room', and an extraordinary pair of consoles desserte by Weisweiler, one of Daguere's favourite ébénistes, and also featuring similar fretted gilt-bronze ornament (see Roberts op. cit., pp. 103-4).