Lot Essay
The vase pattern, with sacrificial bas-relief of a dove-bearing vestal and her companions sacrificing at Love's altar, was invented by Claude Michel, called Clodion (d.1814) in Rome in 1766. Its chimerical goat-horned handles, with Venus dolphin-masks, were taken from an engraving of a vase, invented in Rome by Louis XV's 'Sculpteur' Jacques-Franois Saly (d.1776) in Vases, Paris, 1746. A terracotta version, in the Detroit Institute of Arts, bears the inscription 'Clodion Roma 1766'. Closely related 'vases Clodion', were manufactured in bronze by Ferdinand Barbedienne (d.1892) and first featured in the 1849 Paris catalogue issued by Societe A. Collas et Barbedienne, Sculpture par procede mechaniques. Bronze d'art, pendules, garniture de cheminées...etc. (A.L. Poulet and G. Scherf, Clodion, Paris, 1992, pp. 94-103).