Three ormolu masterpieces of outstanding provenance: ‘among the greatest achievements in French decorative arts’

Among the uppermost echelons of society in 18th-century France, a new taste emerged for adorning rare and beautiful objects with elaborate gilded bronze forms known as ‘ormolu’.

These sculptural additions were created thanks to the collaboration between the guilds of casters, chasers and gilders, overseen by influential marchands-merciers — figures unique to France, who were not only importers of decorative arts, but also designers, dealers and tastemakers.

The process transformed clocks, lighting fixtures, furniture, hardstone objects and Chinese ceramics into a new genre of luxury item coveted by collectors for their salons and Schatzkammern, or treasure rooms.

‘Many earlier hardstone pieces in great collections were mounted in gold, silver and silver gilt,’ says European Furniture and Works of Art specialist Benjamin Berry. ‘Ormolu mounts, which came as a sort of evolution of this practice, represent the pinnacle of skill and technology at the time, and were incredibly laborious to produce. They are among the greatest achievements of the French decorative arts industry.’

In The Exceptional Sale at Christie’s in London on 1 July 2025, lots on offer will include a dazzling trio of ormolu-mounted objects that have passed through the hands of some of Europe’s greatest collectors, from courtiers and earls to dukes, tsars and princes. Here, Berry unravels their fascinating histories.

The Duke of Hamilton’s Tazza

Lapis lazuli, which comes from the mines of Sar-e-Sang in Afghanistan, has been prized since antiquity for its it deep blue tones and glistening seams of gold.

This shallow wine dish, known as a tazza, was carved from a block of lapis around 1600, possibly in a Mughal court, but more likely in Rome, Milan or Florence, where similar objects were being commissioned by the Medici family. Its scale — it is 26.5 centimetres wide — and depth of colour make it incredibly rare, if not unique.

It’s the sort of object that was highly prized by Louis XIV. To put its value in context, the king’s collection of more than 700 hardstone objects included just 14 pieces of lapis, and the majority were small cups less than 15 centimetres in diameter. The only comparable example he owned was the famous ‘Grande Nef’, now in the Louvre.

The tazza coming to Christie’s is first documented in 1777, where it is listed with different mounts in the sale of property belonging to the royal financier Pierre-Louis-Paul Randon be Boisset. Randon de Boisset was one of the most famous French collectors of his day. He lavished his fortune on paintings by Boucher, Murillo, Rubens and Rembrandt, and at one point spent 15 months on a spree in Italy, where he may have acquired this tazza.

After changing hands twice more in the following two decades, the object in its current, Neoclassical form — complete with an added lapis base — was finished some time after 1792 by the celebrated marchand-mercier Jean-Baptiste-Pierre Le Brun, husband of the society portrait painter Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun.

The mounts were likely made in collaboration with Pierre-Philippe Thomire, the most important Parisian manufacturer of gilt bronzes at the turn of the century. The spiral-twisted ribbons and serpents resemble several other examples of his work now in the Wallace Collection in London, the Royal Collection at Windsor, the J. Paul Getty in Los Angeles and the Louvre.

Having found its way to imperial Russia, the tazza appears around 1807 on a list of extraordinary hardstone objects being shipped from St Petersburg to England by the British ambassador, Alexander Hamilton, 10th Duke of Hamilton. The duke furnished his magnificent home, Hamilton Palace, with an equally legendary collection, which was eventually dispersed in 1882 in an epic, three-day-long auction at Christie’s.

The tazza was bought by the politician and notable collector Christopher Beckett Denison. After his death three years later, it was acquired by William Proby, 5th Earl of Carysfort. In 2015, following more than a century at the Proby family seat, Elton Hall, it passed to its current owner.

The Hamilton Ewer

Alexander Hamilton’s extraordinary 1807 shipping list also included this ormolu-mounted agate ewer and basin. Like the tazza, it sold at Christie’s in 1882 to Denison, then again in 1885 to Proby. It was with his family for 120 years before selling to the present owner at Christie’s in 2005.

The ewer is first documented in 1801, in an auction catalogue of an anonymous but important collection of hardstone objects, fine furniture and paintings. Prior to that, it was probably one of the fabled 700 hardstone objects belonging to the Grand Dauphin, who died before his father, Louis XIV, and never ascended to the throne.

The Grand Dauphin’s coat of arms featured a leaping pair of dolphins, and during the 1680s he commissioned items adorned with this motif, made from jasper, agate and rock crystal, for his treasury.

This fiery-coloured agate ewer was likely one of them. It was probably carved in northern Italy, since it resembles a rock-crystal salt cellar in the form of a dolphin that came from the workshop of Giovanni Battista Metellino.

Following the Grand Dauphin’s death in 1711, a small portion of his treasury was divided between his three sons, including Philip V of Spain, while the majority was sold at auction to settle the huge debts he had accumulated.

The ewer’s mounts appear to have been added in Paris in the last decade of the 18th century, and, as with the tazza, they are probably by Pierre-Philippe Thomire, who was known to include classically inspired sphinxes and tritons in his work. Another of his cups mounted on sphinxes was a prized possession of Marie Antoinette, displayed in her private apartments at Versailles.

The Bedford Vase

This porcelain vase, with its exceptionally luminous cobalt-blue glaze, was made in China during the Qing dynasty and dates from the early 18th century.

By around 1765, it was in France, where it was mounted with an elaborate gilt-bronze finial, collar, base and eagle-shaped handles. At nearly a metre high, it is one of the largest pieces of ormolu-mounted Chinese porcelain in existence.

It is first recorded in the collection of Nicolas Beaujon, an extremely wealthy banker at the court of Louis XV. In 1773, he spent one million livres on acquiring the Hôtel d’Evreux, the home of Louis’s mistress, Madame de Pompadour. Today, the building is known as the Elysée Palace and is the official residence of the French president.

To help legitimise his lofty status, Beaujon filled his new home with one of France’s greatest collections. Among his possessions were Hans Holbein’s The Ambassadors (now in the National Gallery in London) and Frans Hals’s The Gypsy Girl (now in the Louvre). Taking pride of place on a chimneypiece in the the principal reception room of the palace’s private apartments, however, was this mounted vase.

Following Beaujon’s death, the vase sold at auction in 1787 to Madame Légère, a well-known dealer in decorative arts. In turn, she sold it to either Francis Russell, 5th Duke of Bedford, or his brother, John Russell, 6th Duke of Bedford.

Both men were big spenders in the Parisian art market, acquiring fashionable objects to furnish their family seat, Woburn Abbey, one of England’s great stately houses, which is today home to their heir, the 15th Duke of Bedford. For some 200 years it was a highlight of the family’s collection, before passing to the current owner in 2009.

The Exceptional Sale takes place on 1 July 2025, and will be on view until 1 July as part of Christie’s Classic Week season in London