BY JEAN DULAC, CIRCA 1770-1774

The provenance of these vases-cloches candelabra is difficult to retrace definitively at the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century as they were first recorded in 1821. In 1807, the furnishings of the hôtel d'Elbeuf were offered by the Emperor Napoleon to the former second consul, Jean-Jacques Régis de Cambacérès, Prince-Archichancelier de l'Empire and duc of Parma, and the contents were subsequently transferred to the hôtel Molé, home of Cambacérès. The inventory taken at this time records deux vases de porcelaine fond azur les anses formées par deux têtes de lion avec anneaux et draperies, les pieds en bronze monté sur sode, la ceinture du milieu en bronze et couverde en pomme de pin Hauteur 48 (centimeters). It is worth noting that this description does not mention any girandole-branches to the interiors. In 1814, while Cambacérès lived in exile, his hôtel, partly furnished, was sold to Louise Marie Adélaïde de Bourbon, duchesse d'Orléans. On her death in 1821, deux vases forme anciènne, montés en cuivre ciselé et doré terminés par une pomme de pin de 17 pouces de haut (0.465 cm) en porcelaine de Saxe fond bleu avec ressort dans l'intérieur formant candélabre à trois lumière 700 are recorded on the ground floor. The contents were due to be divided equally between her two children, the duc d'Orléans and future King, Louis-Philippe, and his sister, Madame Adélaïde d'Orléans. The duc, however, claimed for himself virtually all of the furniture, of which he sent the majority to the château d'Eu. Recorded in the cabinet du Roi in 1841, these candelabra remained at the château d'Eu until their sale at Christie's, London in 1857, three years after the death of the monarch.

DULAC AND THE SEVRES VASES-CLOCHES
Styling himself as marchand gantier-parfumeur et bijouter rue Saint Honoré près de l'Oratoire la tête d'or, Jean Dulac (1704-1786) specialized in ormolu objects and mounted porcelain. A parfumeur by profession, Dulac appears consistently in the sales register of the Sèvres manufactory from 1758-1776. He acquired the majority of the production of this model, known as vases-cloches, mainly between 1772 and 1779, at prices varying from 60 to 84 livres, dependent on the ground color—the fond lapis being far more expensive than the green. By 1774, however, Jean Dulac had sold to his successor les droits de vente par commission des porcelaines de la Manufacture de Sèvres dont il tient dépôt. Several vases-cloches are recorded at that time, predominantly in Sèvres porcelain, some mounted with gilt-bronze and others decorated with a landscape on a green ground, or with roses. A pair of vases with lion-mask handles of this model was delivered to the King of Poland for his use at the Łazienki Palace, Warsaw (P. Verlet, Les Bronzes Dorés Fançais du XVIlle Siècle, Paris, 1987, pp. 72-73, figs. 66-67).
While it is certain that Jean Dulac created this type of vase, it is interesting to note that the Manufacture du Sèvres had the right to sell them directly. This fact is confirmed by the two vases-cloches at the Palace of Pavlovsk, acquired directly from Sèvres in 1782 through the intermediary Prince Baryatinski for the sum of 1,680 livres. The attribution of this group to Dulac is further confirmed by Horace Walpole's visit to Madame Dulac in the autumn of 1765. Walpole acquired, amongst other things, three closely related vases mounted with satyr-masks for his friend John Chute of the Vyne, Hampshire, at a cost of 19 guineas.