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Lot Essay
The superb organic modelling and chasing of the ormolu mounts, in particular the neo-classically inspired husk ring handles, and acanthus scroll base, which embellish this impressive Chinese celadon vase allow an attribution to Jean-Claude Chambellan Duplessis (d.1774), based on recognisable stylistic characteristics found on documented designs for Sèvres porcelain.
The unity of form and decoration suggest the mounts were made specifically for the vase. Another feature for which Duplessis is renowned is the number of surface finishes used to intensify shadows and light to create a naturalistic and fluid effect (G. Sadde, 'Jean-Claude Duplessis, la liberté du style rocaille', L'Estampille L'Objet d'Art, no. 392, June 2004, pp. 42-51).
Duplessis' career was quite illustrious; he is recorded as a sculptor, ceramics modeller, goldsmith, and bronzier working in the rococo manner. Despite the fact that Duplessis is today recognised as one of the most talented and influential designers and bronziers of his day there has not yet been any serious study of his oeuvre and only a few pieces can be firmly attributed to him, including a pair of ormolu braziers commissioned by Jean-Baptiste Machault d'Arnouville for Royal presentation in 1742 to the Ambassador of Turkey; one of which is at the Topkapi Palace Museum (Istanbul).
With limited documented examples or indeed patterns available, attention has turned to designs for porcelain during the period 1748 to 1774 when Duplessis was artistic director at Vincennes and its successor, Sèvres. The central acanthus ornamentation on the ormolu base of the present vase relates to that found on a Sèvres design for a cuvette à fleurs 'à tombeau', almost certainly designed by Duplessis; this model was produced from 1753-74 (R. Savill, The Wallace Collection, Catalogue of Sèvres Porcelain, vol. I, London, 1988, pp. 32-34). Another Sèvres cuvette 'Mahon' formerly in the collection of the Marquise de Pompadour and made during Duplessis' directorship displays a similar acanthus scroll base. A comparable ormolu base but more extravagantly modelled is found on a Chinese porcelain mounted vase in the Frick Collection that Ted Dell suggests was part of a core group with closely related gilt-bronze mounts, circa 1755-60, possibly by Duplessis (T. Dell, The Frick Collection, Furniture and Gilt Bronzes, vol. VI, Princeton, 1992, pp. 309-314). Pierre Verlet illustrates an unattributed ormolu mounted lacquer pot-pourri with related base with reverse scrolls representing roots penetrating the earth, which may also be by Duplessis (Les bronzes dorés français du XVIIIe siècle, Paris, 1987, p. 127).
Duplessis owed his position and success to a number of influential patrons, including the well-connected, Victor-Amédée de Savoie, Prince de Carignan, as well as Marc-René de Voyer de Paulmy d'Argenson. While Duplessis held no official title and never received his maîtrise, he was widely recognised as such due to the protection and accessibility to royal circles that patronage provided. By 1758 he was listed as Orfèvre du Roi in the Sèvres account books. In his early career as a bronzier, Duplessis worked through the intermediary of marchands-merciers who specialised in ormolu-mounted objects employing the services of a bronzier as required. A number of entries in the Livre-journal of the marchand-mercier, Lazare Duvaux, show that Duplessis was regularly engaged to provide mounts for Chinese porcelain referred to as celadon in the day books for the Marquis de Voyer, Monsieur Gaignat and Madame de Pompadour (L. Courajod, Livre-Journal de Lazare Duvaux, Marchand-Bijoutier Ordinaire du Roy, 1748-1758, Paris, 1873, tome II, nos. 601, 1713 and 1810). One entry for the Marquis de Voyer describes 'Deux gros vases de porcelain celadon, montées par Duplessis en bronze doré d'or moulu' at a cost of 3,000 l., a vast sum that illustrates the importance of the commission. After several years his reputation had spread and aristocratic clients such as Augustin Blondel de Gagny and the Duc de Chaulnes approached him directly. As an independent bronzier, Duplessis would not only have supplied the mounts but also the porcelain. To replenish his stock of Oriental porcelain he frequented the Parisian salerooms, acquiring in 1767 from la collection Jullienne 'pots pourris de porcelain d'ancien japon' and 'un grand vase de porcelain de Chine', the total bill coming to 3,800 livres.
THE PROVENANCE
This vase has an illustrious provenance; it was formerly in the celebrated Cowper collection that comprised important paintings, fine furniture and a magnificent porcelain collection from Sèvres, Meissen and Delft, and importantly an extensive collection of Oriental wares at Panshanger (Hertfordshire), a Gothic Revival mansion commissioned specifically for his art collection by Peter Leopold Louis Francis Nassau Clavering-Cowper (d. 1837), 5th Earl Cowper, a connoisseur and francophile. In 1936, the vase was illustrated in the 'The Small Dining-Room' at Panshanger by Country Life ('Panshanger, Hertfordshire - I', 11 January 1936, p. 42, fig. 12). The Earls Cowper were a dynasty of collectors beginning with the 2nd Earl in the mid-18th century who collected Dutch and Flemish pictures including Van Dyck's tour de force, 'Count Nassau and His Family', now on loan to the Ashmolean Museum (Oxford) (D. Gage, 'Francis Watson at Firle Place, East Sussex', Metropolitan Museum Journal, vol. 37, 2002, pp. 239-241). However, it was the 5th Earl, with an enthusiastic interest in French furniture and objets de vertu, who had a special 'china room' built at Panshanger for his spectacular porcelain collection, and while not documented it is likely that the present vase entered the collection in this period.
The unity of form and decoration suggest the mounts were made specifically for the vase. Another feature for which Duplessis is renowned is the number of surface finishes used to intensify shadows and light to create a naturalistic and fluid effect (G. Sadde, 'Jean-Claude Duplessis, la liberté du style rocaille', L'Estampille L'Objet d'Art, no. 392, June 2004, pp. 42-51).
Duplessis' career was quite illustrious; he is recorded as a sculptor, ceramics modeller, goldsmith, and bronzier working in the rococo manner. Despite the fact that Duplessis is today recognised as one of the most talented and influential designers and bronziers of his day there has not yet been any serious study of his oeuvre and only a few pieces can be firmly attributed to him, including a pair of ormolu braziers commissioned by Jean-Baptiste Machault d'Arnouville for Royal presentation in 1742 to the Ambassador of Turkey; one of which is at the Topkapi Palace Museum (Istanbul).
With limited documented examples or indeed patterns available, attention has turned to designs for porcelain during the period 1748 to 1774 when Duplessis was artistic director at Vincennes and its successor, Sèvres. The central acanthus ornamentation on the ormolu base of the present vase relates to that found on a Sèvres design for a cuvette à fleurs 'à tombeau', almost certainly designed by Duplessis; this model was produced from 1753-74 (R. Savill, The Wallace Collection, Catalogue of Sèvres Porcelain, vol. I, London, 1988, pp. 32-34). Another Sèvres cuvette 'Mahon' formerly in the collection of the Marquise de Pompadour and made during Duplessis' directorship displays a similar acanthus scroll base. A comparable ormolu base but more extravagantly modelled is found on a Chinese porcelain mounted vase in the Frick Collection that Ted Dell suggests was part of a core group with closely related gilt-bronze mounts, circa 1755-60, possibly by Duplessis (T. Dell, The Frick Collection, Furniture and Gilt Bronzes, vol. VI, Princeton, 1992, pp. 309-314). Pierre Verlet illustrates an unattributed ormolu mounted lacquer pot-pourri with related base with reverse scrolls representing roots penetrating the earth, which may also be by Duplessis (Les bronzes dorés français du XVIIIe siècle, Paris, 1987, p. 127).
Duplessis owed his position and success to a number of influential patrons, including the well-connected, Victor-Amédée de Savoie, Prince de Carignan, as well as Marc-René de Voyer de Paulmy d'Argenson. While Duplessis held no official title and never received his maîtrise, he was widely recognised as such due to the protection and accessibility to royal circles that patronage provided. By 1758 he was listed as Orfèvre du Roi in the Sèvres account books. In his early career as a bronzier, Duplessis worked through the intermediary of marchands-merciers who specialised in ormolu-mounted objects employing the services of a bronzier as required. A number of entries in the Livre-journal of the marchand-mercier, Lazare Duvaux, show that Duplessis was regularly engaged to provide mounts for Chinese porcelain referred to as celadon in the day books for the Marquis de Voyer, Monsieur Gaignat and Madame de Pompadour (L. Courajod, Livre-Journal de Lazare Duvaux, Marchand-Bijoutier Ordinaire du Roy, 1748-1758, Paris, 1873, tome II, nos. 601, 1713 and 1810). One entry for the Marquis de Voyer describes 'Deux gros vases de porcelain celadon, montées par Duplessis en bronze doré d'or moulu' at a cost of 3,000 l., a vast sum that illustrates the importance of the commission. After several years his reputation had spread and aristocratic clients such as Augustin Blondel de Gagny and the Duc de Chaulnes approached him directly. As an independent bronzier, Duplessis would not only have supplied the mounts but also the porcelain. To replenish his stock of Oriental porcelain he frequented the Parisian salerooms, acquiring in 1767 from la collection Jullienne 'pots pourris de porcelain d'ancien japon' and 'un grand vase de porcelain de Chine', the total bill coming to 3,800 livres.
THE PROVENANCE
This vase has an illustrious provenance; it was formerly in the celebrated Cowper collection that comprised important paintings, fine furniture and a magnificent porcelain collection from Sèvres, Meissen and Delft, and importantly an extensive collection of Oriental wares at Panshanger (Hertfordshire), a Gothic Revival mansion commissioned specifically for his art collection by Peter Leopold Louis Francis Nassau Clavering-Cowper (d. 1837), 5th Earl Cowper, a connoisseur and francophile. In 1936, the vase was illustrated in the 'The Small Dining-Room' at Panshanger by Country Life ('Panshanger, Hertfordshire - I', 11 January 1936, p. 42, fig. 12). The Earls Cowper were a dynasty of collectors beginning with the 2nd Earl in the mid-18th century who collected Dutch and Flemish pictures including Van Dyck's tour de force, 'Count Nassau and His Family', now on loan to the Ashmolean Museum (Oxford) (D. Gage, 'Francis Watson at Firle Place, East Sussex', Metropolitan Museum Journal, vol. 37, 2002, pp. 239-241). However, it was the 5th Earl, with an enthusiastic interest in French furniture and objets de vertu, who had a special 'china room' built at Panshanger for his spectacular porcelain collection, and while not documented it is likely that the present vase entered the collection in this period.