A PAIR OF LOUIS XVI CARVED IVORY URNS

Details
A PAIR OF LOUIS XVI CARVED IVORY URNS
LATE 18TH CENTURY

Each of ovoidal form, the domed foliate-carved cover with acorn finial, the fluted and panelled body with ribbon-tied reeded handles carved with floral and fruit garlands on a beaded circular socle and square plinth, each with stepped grey marble square base-11¼in. (28cm.) height overall (2)

Lot Essay

These ornamental vases relate to a series of works that date from the late eighteenth centruy and continued until the 1830's. The atelier of Charles-Etienne Thomas (1787-1857) produced reliefs which show a pair of vases similar in their form and decoration (Musée de Dieppe, Inv. 764-765).

An identical pair of vases (with different plinths) from the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore is illustrated in R.H. Randall, Jr., Masterpieces of Ivory, 1985, p. 297, fig. 428. Another similar pair from the studio of Louis-Raymond Brunel (1818-1882) is in the Musée de Dieppe (Inv. no. 1221a, b). and a third pair is in the Bayerishes Nationalmuseum, Munich, (Berliner, no. 649).