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Lot Essay
A powerful allusion to royal and princely taste through millennia, this pair of porphyry vases are a statement of dynastic legitimacy and influence and were prominently displayed flanking the entrance of the Salon des Cuirs in James de Rothschild’s Château de Ferrières. Mounted in France with specially-commissioned ormolu of the highest quality, these Egyptian porphyry vases carved in 17th-century Rome were among the most sought-after objects of the 18th century.
With their distinctive ‘navette’-shaped form, these vases relate to a group of vases carved in Rome and acquired by the court of France in the mid-17th century, largely at the initiative of the powerful and influential ministers, the Cardinals Mazarin (1602-1661) and Richelieu (1585-1642) and their royal master Louis XIV. The galerie des glaces and surrounding salons at the Château de Versailles were the intended theatre for the majority of the porphyry objects in France and the 1722 inventory of the galerie des glaces counts some 36 porphyry vases, including four navettes, a collection unrivalled in Europe. There are three pairs of navette vases currently preserved in the Château de Versailles that relate to the present vases. One pair, presented on a console table in the galerie des glaces, is of very similar navette form but devoid of mounts (ill. in P. Arizzoli-Clémentel, Versailles, Furniture of the Royal Palace, 17th and 18th Centuries, vol. 2, Dijon, 2002, pp.171 and 173) and two identical pairs in the salon d’abondance (inv. MR Sup 251, 252), differ from the present vases in their gadrooned bodies, but have frieze mounts of similar date which relate to the guilloche motif and rosette clasps of the mount of the present vases. As the sophistication and quality of gilt-bronze production increased throughout the second half of the 18th century, ormolu mounts were commissioned to embellish prestigious objects in the latest fashion and the neoclassical mounts of these vases illustrate the continued appreciation for and reinterpretation of porphyry objects at the end of the ancien régime. A related vase of very similar form but with earlier ormolu mounts in the rococo fashion of the mid-18th century was sold Christie’s, London, 8 December 2011, lot 74 (£373,250).
In his vision to construct the grandest and most ambitious residence of 19th century France it is of no great surprise that James Mayer de Rothschild sought to acquire porphyry vases to convey the confidence of his dynasty and stake a claim to rival the great royal collections of the past. In addition to these vases, James Mayer acquired a further pair of ormolu-mounted porphyry vases which were depicted by Eugène Lami in the grand hall of Ferrières and were sold Christie’s, Paris, 26-27 October 2010, lot 415 (€505,000).
ORIGINS IN ANTIQUITY
Quarried in the Roman imperial mines at Gebel Dokhan in the deserts of eastern Egypt until their abandonment in 600 AD, red porphyry of this type was used extensively in the most luxurious objects and grandest imperial edifices of Rome and Constantinople. Its close association with imperial power led later European rulers to covet the aesthetic continuity and legitimacy it afforded their regimes and the 17th century in particular saw the emergence of workshops in Rome carving new decorative objects out of porphyry at the behest of the Medici, and later, the French court. Of extraordinary durability, the carving of porphyry required extreme dexterity and skill. Cardinal Mazarin in particular was inordinately fond of porphyry with its overtures to the political supremacy of the Roman and Byzantine empires, and in the mid-17th century he dispatched agents to Italy to procure these goods from the hardstone artisans feeding the long-standing Medici and papal appetite for such treasures. Due to the loss of the Egyptian mines in antiquity, all red porphyry objects carved from 600 AD until the early 19th century, including the present vases, were carved from existing antique porphyry objects found in the ruins of ancient Rome, most often architectural columns that had adorned public buildings such as the Baths of Diocletian.
THE DESIGN OF THE PORPHYRY
In the late 17th century Mazarin’s agent in Rome, the Abbé Elpidio Benedetti (circa 1610-1690), sent to France a sheet of drawings depicting a number of porphyry vase designs complete with measurements (now in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, ref. Fossier 334). These drawings were most likely Benedetti’s depictions of what was available on the Roman market at the time, with accompanying descriptions of whether they came as a pair or singular piece. The present lot corresponds in form and indeed size to Design C on the sheet, although the description of the vase by Benedetti as ‘unique’ indicates that the present lot does not represent the exact one seen and put to paper by the Abbé. While the authorship of these vases would be conjecture, the names of artisans who produced these objects are known from invoices, and a group of vases in the Palazzo Doria Pamphilj in Rome of related shape to the Benedetti drawings and indeed to the present vases were supplied by the porphyry specialist Silvio Calci.
With their distinctive ‘navette’-shaped form, these vases relate to a group of vases carved in Rome and acquired by the court of France in the mid-17th century, largely at the initiative of the powerful and influential ministers, the Cardinals Mazarin (1602-1661) and Richelieu (1585-1642) and their royal master Louis XIV. The galerie des glaces and surrounding salons at the Château de Versailles were the intended theatre for the majority of the porphyry objects in France and the 1722 inventory of the galerie des glaces counts some 36 porphyry vases, including four navettes, a collection unrivalled in Europe. There are three pairs of navette vases currently preserved in the Château de Versailles that relate to the present vases. One pair, presented on a console table in the galerie des glaces, is of very similar navette form but devoid of mounts (ill. in P. Arizzoli-Clémentel, Versailles, Furniture of the Royal Palace, 17th and 18th Centuries, vol. 2, Dijon, 2002, pp.171 and 173) and two identical pairs in the salon d’abondance (inv. MR Sup 251, 252), differ from the present vases in their gadrooned bodies, but have frieze mounts of similar date which relate to the guilloche motif and rosette clasps of the mount of the present vases. As the sophistication and quality of gilt-bronze production increased throughout the second half of the 18th century, ormolu mounts were commissioned to embellish prestigious objects in the latest fashion and the neoclassical mounts of these vases illustrate the continued appreciation for and reinterpretation of porphyry objects at the end of the ancien régime. A related vase of very similar form but with earlier ormolu mounts in the rococo fashion of the mid-18th century was sold Christie’s, London, 8 December 2011, lot 74 (£373,250).
In his vision to construct the grandest and most ambitious residence of 19th century France it is of no great surprise that James Mayer de Rothschild sought to acquire porphyry vases to convey the confidence of his dynasty and stake a claim to rival the great royal collections of the past. In addition to these vases, James Mayer acquired a further pair of ormolu-mounted porphyry vases which were depicted by Eugène Lami in the grand hall of Ferrières and were sold Christie’s, Paris, 26-27 October 2010, lot 415 (€505,000).
ORIGINS IN ANTIQUITY
Quarried in the Roman imperial mines at Gebel Dokhan in the deserts of eastern Egypt until their abandonment in 600 AD, red porphyry of this type was used extensively in the most luxurious objects and grandest imperial edifices of Rome and Constantinople. Its close association with imperial power led later European rulers to covet the aesthetic continuity and legitimacy it afforded their regimes and the 17th century in particular saw the emergence of workshops in Rome carving new decorative objects out of porphyry at the behest of the Medici, and later, the French court. Of extraordinary durability, the carving of porphyry required extreme dexterity and skill. Cardinal Mazarin in particular was inordinately fond of porphyry with its overtures to the political supremacy of the Roman and Byzantine empires, and in the mid-17th century he dispatched agents to Italy to procure these goods from the hardstone artisans feeding the long-standing Medici and papal appetite for such treasures. Due to the loss of the Egyptian mines in antiquity, all red porphyry objects carved from 600 AD until the early 19th century, including the present vases, were carved from existing antique porphyry objects found in the ruins of ancient Rome, most often architectural columns that had adorned public buildings such as the Baths of Diocletian.
THE DESIGN OF THE PORPHYRY
In the late 17th century Mazarin’s agent in Rome, the Abbé Elpidio Benedetti (circa 1610-1690), sent to France a sheet of drawings depicting a number of porphyry vase designs complete with measurements (now in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, ref. Fossier 334). These drawings were most likely Benedetti’s depictions of what was available on the Roman market at the time, with accompanying descriptions of whether they came as a pair or singular piece. The present lot corresponds in form and indeed size to Design C on the sheet, although the description of the vase by Benedetti as ‘unique’ indicates that the present lot does not represent the exact one seen and put to paper by the Abbé. While the authorship of these vases would be conjecture, the names of artisans who produced these objects are known from invoices, and a group of vases in the Palazzo Doria Pamphilj in Rome of related shape to the Benedetti drawings and indeed to the present vases were supplied by the porphyry specialist Silvio Calci.