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Lot Essay
Reflecting the late 18th Century's obsession with hardstones - a taste expounded above all by the duc d'Aumont and, subsequently Marie-Antoinette - this vine-wrapped agate 'tazza' shares much with the oeuvre of Jean-Demosthne Dugourc (1749-1825). Appointed dessinateur du Garde-Meuble de la Couronne, Dugourc signed the related design for an ormolu-mounted hardstone bowl with octagonal base and foliate scroll feet, which is now in the Royal Ontario Museum (H. Creel Collinson, Documenting Design, Toronto , 1993, p. 9 4, no. 44). Dated 1784, as an inscription on the latter reveals the drawing was supplied to the goldsmith and jouallier du Roi Ange-Joseph Aubert (1736-1785).
Such hardstone-mounted pieces, reminiscent of Renaissance schatzkammer objects, enjoyed a revived popularity at the end of the 18th century through the impetus of both the marchands-mercier and, more importantly, the htel des Menus-Plaisirs, where the duc d'Aumont himself established a workshop in 1770 specialising in the cutting and polishing of precious hardstones. This celebrated
atelier employed none other than Franois-Joseph Belanger (1744-1818) as designer, Pierre Gouthire (1732-1813) as ciseleur-doreur, Augustin Bocciardi (active 1760-90) as sculpteur and Guillemain for giving the hardstones a 'polis ferme et brillant'. At the very end of the 18th Century, the duc d'Aumont's legacy was in turn taken up by designers such as Jean-Guillaume Moitte (1746-1810), who supplied objects of this nature to William Beckford at Fonthill.
Such hardstone-mounted pieces, reminiscent of Renaissance schatzkammer objects, enjoyed a revived popularity at the end of the 18th century through the impetus of both the marchands-mercier and, more importantly, the htel des Menus-Plaisirs, where the duc d'Aumont himself established a workshop in 1770 specialising in the cutting and polishing of precious hardstones. This celebrated
atelier employed none other than Franois-Joseph Belanger (1744-1818) as designer, Pierre Gouthire (1732-1813) as ciseleur-doreur, Augustin Bocciardi (active 1760-90) as sculpteur and Guillemain for giving the hardstones a 'polis ferme et brillant'. At the very end of the 18th Century, the duc d'Aumont's legacy was in turn taken up by designers such as Jean-Guillaume Moitte (1746-1810), who supplied objects of this nature to William Beckford at Fonthill.