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Lot Essay
These cache-pots are set in Bérainesque strapwork mounts of circa 1715-1725, and relate to the latter oeuvre of André-Charles Boulle (1642-1732), in particular to a design for wall-lights of 1724, and to the backplate of a three-branch wall-light in the Louvre (ill. H. Ottomeyer/P. Pröschel et. al., Vergoldete Bronzen, Munich, 1986, vol. I., p. 61, fig. 1.9.4 and 1.9.5). They also relate to the silver mounts of a Japanese Imari lidded bowl in the Toledo Museum of Art, which are struck with the Paris discharge mark for 1717-1722 (F.J.B. Watson, Mounted Oriental Porcelain, Exhibition Catalogue, Washington, 1986, p. 56-57, no. 14).
The mounting of oriental porcelain first developed in the Middle Ages but reached its zenith in the mid-18th Century, when Parisian marchands-merciers such as Lazare Duvaux and Thomas-Joachim Hébert, catered to the inexhaustible demand for mounted porcelains among fashionable amateurs. The vogue for mounted porcelain is reflected in a discussion on the collection of Blondel de Gagny by Dezaillier d'Argenville, in his Voyage Pittoresque de Paris of 1752:
'La peinture ne fait pas le seul ornament du cabinet de M. Blondel de Gagny, on y voit avec plaisir une très grand quantité de porcelaines anciennes les plus parfaites, dont les montures semblent disputer le prix avec les pièces qu'elles accompagnent'.
The mounting of oriental porcelain first developed in the Middle Ages but reached its zenith in the mid-18th Century, when Parisian marchands-merciers such as Lazare Duvaux and Thomas-Joachim Hébert, catered to the inexhaustible demand for mounted porcelains among fashionable amateurs. The vogue for mounted porcelain is reflected in a discussion on the collection of Blondel de Gagny by Dezaillier d'Argenville, in his Voyage Pittoresque de Paris of 1752:
'La peinture ne fait pas le seul ornament du cabinet de M. Blondel de Gagny, on y voit avec plaisir une très grand quantité de porcelaines anciennes les plus parfaites, dont les montures semblent disputer le prix avec les pièces qu'elles accompagnent'.