Lot Essay
These ormolu-mounted marble perfume-burners of egg-shaped form on ogee-sided altar-pedestals were manufactured by Messrs. Matthew Boulton and John Fothergill of Soho, Birmingham in around 1772. The vases with voluted handles terminating in bacchic ram-masks that are festooned with laurel, closely correspond to a design for one in blue-john illustrated in their Pattern Book (illustrated in N. Goodison, Ormolu: The Work of Matthew Boulton, 1974, pl. 163, fig. m and reproduced here). Boulton was inspired by numerous sources including contemporary sculptors working in the fashionable classical style. It is recorded that Boulton purchased plaster casts for ormolu models from John Flaxman senior, who also supplied models for Josiah Wedgwood. On November 16, 1770, Boulton bought a ram's head cast for 80 s. A pair of perfume-burners with ram's head of this pattern, with statuary marble pedestals and blue-john vases, is illustrated in N. Goodison, op. cit, pl. 141.
A pair of related blue-john vases of this handle pattern almost certainly commissioned by Sir Edward Knatchbull (d. 1779) for Mersham-Le-Hatch, Kent, was sold from the collection of Lord Brabourne, Christie's London, 19 November 1992, lot 4 and again, anonymously, 6 July 1995, lot 10. Another blue-john version of this model was sold Christie's London, 25 June 1987, lot 2.
A pair of related blue-john vases of this handle pattern almost certainly commissioned by Sir Edward Knatchbull (d. 1779) for Mersham-Le-Hatch, Kent, was sold from the collection of Lord Brabourne, Christie's London, 19 November 1992, lot 4 and again, anonymously, 6 July 1995, lot 10. Another blue-john version of this model was sold Christie's London, 25 June 1987, lot 2.