ATTRIBUTED TO PIERRE GOUTHIERE, CIRCA 1775-80

This superb and finely chased ormolu-mounted porphyry vase has recently been identified in the late 18th century collection of Pierre Jacques Onésyme Bergeret de Grandcourt (1715-1785). This exciting discovery was made in the catalogue of his sale (Paris, 24 April 1786), in which its unusual 'satyr' putti handles seated on lion's masks, are very precisely described:
Lot 272- Un vase, de forme ronde, évidé, enrichi de deux figures d’enfant à pieds de satyre, assis sur une tête de lion, à anneaux figurant les anses, & appuyés sur le bord de la gorge, avec culot & socle en bronze doré d’or mat ; il est placé sur un fût de colonne de marbre grec antique, avec tore & base de petit antique. Hauteur du vase 12 pouces [32.4 cm. high].

Pierre Jacques Onésyme Bergeret de Grandcourt, seigneur de Grandcourt, comte de Nègrepelisse, commandeur and trésorier général de l'ordre de Saint Louis, receveur général des finances at Montauban in 1751, was an important art collector and patron. The eldest son of Pierre-François Bergeret, he inherited his father's considerable fortune. He became a great patron of the leading artists of his time, including François Boucher and Jean-Honoré Fragonard, with whom he made an artistic journey - a year-long Grand Tour in Italy and the Holy Roman Empire from 1773 to 1774. His full-length portrait by Fragonard is now at the Atger museum in Montpellier, and another painted by François-André Vincent is at the Besançon Museum.

The celebrated architect Pierre-Adrien Pâris also accompanied Bergeret de Grandcourt around Italy and worked in many of the family’s properties such as Nointel and Nègrepelisse. Interestingly, Pâris was an active buyer in Bergeret's 1786 posthumous sale, in which this vase is listed, a testimony to their friendship.

Most of Bergeret’s collection was housed in his Paris residence, the grand Hôtel Bergeret at the northern end of Rue du Temple, one of the most beautiful and richest buildings in the district. The collection comprised a large number of Dutch and contemporary paintings, with nearly forty attributed to François Boucher. Apart from paintings, Bergeret’s main focus seemed to have been in antique marble objects with approximately 47 vases and countless columns and socles, most in red and green porphyry, vert antique, alabaster and other rare marbles listed in his sale. Unusually, he owned a pair of black marble ‘mummies’ (lot 297 in his sale), which are depicted in the background of his portrait by Vincent.

Many of these objects were mounted with precious neoclassical ormolu mounts, such as the present vase, the body of which is most likely an antique porphyry mortar. The extremely fine mounts of the present vase recall the oeuvre of the celebrated bronzier Pierre Gouthière, who seemed to have worked for Bergeret enriching some of the objects listed in his sale, several of which could undoubtedly be attributed to his workshop. Lot 301, for instance, lists a garniture comprising a green marble vase and cassolettes with mounts of the same model as those executed by Gouthière for Stanislas Poniatowski, future King of Poland (illustrated C. Vignon et C. Baulez, Pierre Gouthière, The Frick Collection, New York, 2016, p. 159). Another cassolette in his collection (lot 302), could be identified as the vase sold recently at Christie’s, London, 6 July 2023, lot 57, whose mounts were also attributed to the celebrated bronzier. Very characteristic and specific to the oeuvre of Gouthière is the highly specialised and particular finish known as 'dorure au mat', a technique precisely described for the present vase when listed in the 1786 sale, which was at the time presented on a column of ‘Greek antique marble’.