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Lot Essay
The Sèvres factory produced this shape of vase designed for mounting - vases à monter - from around 1764. The porcelain vases were mostly tapering cylindrical or egg-shaped and initially of a solid ground colour of blue or green in imitation of Oriental porcelain; slightly later examples exist in dark-blue, turquoise or green-ground decorated with rose-buds and flowerheads within circular reserves. The vases were then adorned with gilt-bronze by marchand-merciers such as Jean Dulac, Dominique Daguerre and Simon-Phillippe Poirier, who purchased the porcelain directly from Sèvres. The existence of five basic styles of mount indicates that marchand-merciers produced their own signature mounts, retaining the lead chefs modèles for their own exclusive use (L. Roth & C. Le Corbeiller, French Eighteenth Century Porcelain at the Wadsworth Atheneum: The J. Pierpoint Morgan Collection, 2000, pp. 156-7).
The present pair of goût grec vases, with their Bacchic lion-masks and Grecian-fretted antique-striated handles, are almost identical in design to a garniture of three apple green porcelain vases identically mounted, though with the addition of a Greek-key pattern to the plinths, formerly in the collection of Sir Philip Sassoon at 25 Park Lane, London and thereafter his sister Sybil, Marchioness of Cholmondeley, at Houghton Hall, Norfolk (sold Christie's, London, 8 December 1994, lot 38). Other versions include the central vase of a garniture illustrated in S. Eriksen, Early Neo-Classicism in France, London, 1974, p. 363, pl. 242, formerly in the collection of Mme. Jules Fribourg; Eriksen mentions another set sold from the collection of Erich von Goldschmidt-Rothschild, which bore the date letter 'q' for 1769 (sold Berlin, 23 March 1931, lot 206). A complete garniture of five vases displaying a variety of mounts is in the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford (Roth, op.cit., fig. 74).
The present pair of goût grec vases, with their Bacchic lion-masks and Grecian-fretted antique-striated handles, are almost identical in design to a garniture of three apple green porcelain vases identically mounted, though with the addition of a Greek-key pattern to the plinths, formerly in the collection of Sir Philip Sassoon at 25 Park Lane, London and thereafter his sister Sybil, Marchioness of Cholmondeley, at Houghton Hall, Norfolk (sold Christie's, London, 8 December 1994, lot 38). Other versions include the central vase of a garniture illustrated in S. Eriksen, Early Neo-Classicism in France, London, 1974, p. 363, pl. 242, formerly in the collection of Mme. Jules Fribourg; Eriksen mentions another set sold from the collection of Erich von Goldschmidt-Rothschild, which bore the date letter 'q' for 1769 (sold Berlin, 23 March 1931, lot 206). A complete garniture of five vases displaying a variety of mounts is in the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford (Roth, op.cit., fig. 74).