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Lot Essay
The arms are those of Borghese.
This teapot and the following lot were presumably made as later additions to the celebrated Borghese service traditionally held to have been commissioned by Napoleon from Martin-Guillaume Biennais and presented to his sister Pauline Bonaparte on the occasion of her marriage to Prince Camillo Borghese in 1803. The assumption that this extensive service bearing the Borghese arms was presented as a wedding gift has, however, recently been reexamined. Not only are several of the most important pieces signed by Biennais "Orfvre de Lrs. Mts Impriales et Royales Paris", indicating therefore that they were supplied some time after Napoleon was crowned King of Italy in 1805, but numerous pieces also bear a Paris hallmark in use between 1809 and 1819 (See Anthony Phillips and Jeanne Sloane, Antiquity Revisited. English and French Silver-Gilt from the Collection of Audrey Love, London, 1997, p.98-112). Hence, while the service comprising over 1,000 pieces may indeed have been promised by Napoleon as a gift to his sister at the time of her wedding, it was delivered over a period of time, in several installments. Although Biennais, principal supplier of the Court, received the inital commission and was responsible for making over 500 pieces, the extent of the service required the work to be farmed out to several important French, Florentine and Roman silversmiths, including Jean-Baptiste-Claude Odiot and the Scheggi brothers. These additions, dating often as late as the 1820s, were directly ordered by the Prince or by Pauline Borghese after she rejoined her husband in Florence shortly before her death in 1825. These pieces produced in the Empire style by Charles-Nicolas Odiot are inspired from models used by his father Jean-Baptiste-Claude Odiot for the ncssaire executed for Napoleon (Jean-Marie Pinon and Olivier Gaube du Gers, Odiot l'Orfvre, Paris, 1990, p. 77).
This teapot and the following lot were presumably made as later additions to the celebrated Borghese service traditionally held to have been commissioned by Napoleon from Martin-Guillaume Biennais and presented to his sister Pauline Bonaparte on the occasion of her marriage to Prince Camillo Borghese in 1803. The assumption that this extensive service bearing the Borghese arms was presented as a wedding gift has, however, recently been reexamined. Not only are several of the most important pieces signed by Biennais "Orfvre de Lrs. Mts Impriales et Royales Paris", indicating therefore that they were supplied some time after Napoleon was crowned King of Italy in 1805, but numerous pieces also bear a Paris hallmark in use between 1809 and 1819 (See Anthony Phillips and Jeanne Sloane, Antiquity Revisited. English and French Silver-Gilt from the Collection of Audrey Love, London, 1997, p.98-112). Hence, while the service comprising over 1,000 pieces may indeed have been promised by Napoleon as a gift to his sister at the time of her wedding, it was delivered over a period of time, in several installments. Although Biennais, principal supplier of the Court, received the inital commission and was responsible for making over 500 pieces, the extent of the service required the work to be farmed out to several important French, Florentine and Roman silversmiths, including Jean-Baptiste-Claude Odiot and the Scheggi brothers. These additions, dating often as late as the 1820s, were directly ordered by the Prince or by Pauline Borghese after she rejoined her husband in Florence shortly before her death in 1825. These pieces produced in the Empire style by Charles-Nicolas Odiot are inspired from models used by his father Jean-Baptiste-Claude Odiot for the ncssaire executed for Napoleon (Jean-Marie Pinon and Olivier Gaube du Gers, Odiot l'Orfvre, Paris, 1990, p. 77).