CIRCA 1765-70

Beautifully executed, these vases are Louis XVI adaptations of earlier Italian models from the seventeenth century that had been inspired by antique prototypes. The distinctive turned gadrooning and the flattened upper section seen on these vases appear on ancient Roman urns, such as the 1st/2nd century A.D. example illustrated D. Del Bufalo, Porphyry, Turin, 2012, p. 153, fig. V109. Such vessels were reimagined by seventeenth-century Italian artists, such as Giovanni Angelo Canini, whose design for comparable double-handled vases are illustrated ibid., p. 145, fig. V56b. Similarly to lot 84 in this sale, the vases offered here were adapted in overall shape and proportion and were mounted with jewel-like ormolu finials to fit the refined Neoclassicism of the late Louis XV/early Louis XVI period. This particular form is know to have been executed in other hard stones, however undoubtably those fashioned out of pophyry must have been the rarest, most luxurious and sought-after. A pair of granite uns of this form, decoration and very similar ormolu finials was sold Christie's London, 14 December 2000, lot 85.