BY MAISON BOUDET, PARIS, THE RELIEFS AFTER CLAUDE MICHEL, CALLED CLODION, CIRCA 1890

The Maison Boudet operated a prolific magasin at 43, boulevard des Capucines from 1886 forward, creating a wide range of items including objets d'art, furniture and jewellery. The present jardinières of impressive scale and fine chasing, combine elements of decoration from the Louis XVI period including rams masks, Greek key borders and trailing foliate garlands. The reliefs to the central panel relate closely to a terracotta possibly after the late 18th/early 19th century sculptor Claude Michel, called Clodion (1738-1814) representing the Triumph of Bacchus now in The National Gallery of Canada, Ottowa, illustrated in A. Poulet, G. Scherf, 'Clodion 1738-1814,’ Exhibition Catalogue, 17 March – 29 June 1992, Paris, p. 200, fig. 114. Scherf has suggested that a similar relief may once have been part of an architectural frieze, an important vein of Clodion’s production in which elaborate bacchic processions were frequently represented (G. Scherf, op. cit., p. 202).