LATE 18TH CENTURY

This distinctive verrire, with its combination of finely cast small scale ormolu mounts l'antique and exotic hardstones, can be attributed to the workshop of the celebrated Roman bronziers and goldsmiths Luigi and his son Giuseppe Valadier, whose distinguished clients included the Borghese and Braschi families. A pair of closely related covered vases attributed to the Valader workshop, with bodies of green porphyry and identical lion's mask handles and white marble bases, was sold from the collection of Peter Zervudachi, Sotheby's London, 10-11 June 1998, lot 302. The covers of the Zervudachi vases incorporate flowers and stars very similar to those in the rim of this verrire, which also appear in the arms of Pio VI Braschi in an ormolu frame designed for him by Giuseppe Spagna, Giuseppe Valadier's brother-in-law who took over the workshop in 1817 (illustrated in the exhibition catalogue L'Oro di Valadier, Un genio nella Roma del Settecento, Villa Medici, 29 January-8 April 1997, pl. XXXIX).
A design for a verrire from the Valadier workshop, circa 1780, with a similar undulating rim incorporating flowers, is illustrated in the exhibition catalogue Valadier, Artemis Group, London, 15 May-12 June 1991, p. 87, cat. 50. Other very similar porphyry vases were sold Christie's Monaco, 16 June 1990, lot 195, and Sotheby's London, 13 December 1996, lot 147.