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Lot Essay
The French practice of mounting Asian ceramics in European metalwork, recorded as early as the fourteenth century, took on a new life in the eighteenth century, as gilt bronze replaced silver as the preferred mounting medium, and mounts themselves took on new and more complex, sculptural forms. Just as the marchand-merciers of Paris were responsible for the supply of Asian porcelain to their networks of clients, so too did they maintain close networks within the guilds of bronze casters and chasers (fondeurs-ciseleurs) and gilders (doreurs), who could produce mounts to enrich their wares. By framing the precious Chinese porcelain in sumptuous gilt-bronze, these craftsmen transformed them into entirely new objects, aligning them with the latest tastes of France’s most elite collectors. As Carolyn Sargentson notes, the practice of mounting porcelains allowed them to move beyond being seen as foreign novelties, integrating them instead into “the French canon of good design and craftsmanship”. (C. Sargentson, Merchants and Luxury Markets, London, 1996, p. 62).
This majestic vase is remarkable not only in its impressive scale but also for its beautifully chased and modeled rocaille mounts which exemplify the mature Rococo style of Parisian bronziers in the 1750s. It belongs to a distinct group of similar vases in powder-blue porcelain with closely related bulrush handles and gadrooned rims below the lids, possibly created in the same bronzier’s workshop. In the case of this vase, the rim is pierced to allow the fragrance of aromatic pot-pourri, in the form of dried flowers and spices, to waft out and perfume the room where the vase rests. Of the other examples, the earliest are a pair of vases stamped with the crowned ‘C’ (thus dating the mounts to 1745-1749) in the Frick Collection, New York (acc. no. 1915.8.42) and a single example, its porcelain body of almost exactly the same shape as this example, in the Forsythe Wickes Collection at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (acc. no. 65.2262a-b). The celebrated marchand-mercier Lazare Duvaux, the most important dealer of mounted porcelains in Paris, sold what must have been a similar vase to Madame de Pompadour, Louis XV’s official mistress and a passionate connoisseur of Asian porcelain on 6 December 1751, described as:
‘Une vase d’ancienne porcelain bleue imitant le lapis, garni en bronze d’or moulu,1320 l(ivres)'.
This majestic vase is remarkable not only in its impressive scale but also for its beautifully chased and modeled rocaille mounts which exemplify the mature Rococo style of Parisian bronziers in the 1750s. It belongs to a distinct group of similar vases in powder-blue porcelain with closely related bulrush handles and gadrooned rims below the lids, possibly created in the same bronzier’s workshop. In the case of this vase, the rim is pierced to allow the fragrance of aromatic pot-pourri, in the form of dried flowers and spices, to waft out and perfume the room where the vase rests. Of the other examples, the earliest are a pair of vases stamped with the crowned ‘C’ (thus dating the mounts to 1745-1749) in the Frick Collection, New York (acc. no. 1915.8.42) and a single example, its porcelain body of almost exactly the same shape as this example, in the Forsythe Wickes Collection at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (acc. no. 65.2262a-b). The celebrated marchand-mercier Lazare Duvaux, the most important dealer of mounted porcelains in Paris, sold what must have been a similar vase to Madame de Pompadour, Louis XV’s official mistress and a passionate connoisseur of Asian porcelain on 6 December 1751, described as:
‘Une vase d’ancienne porcelain bleue imitant le lapis, garni en bronze d’or moulu,1320 l(ivres)'.