Lot Essay
These ormolu-mounted statuary marble perfume-burners, comprising plinth bases with egg-shaped bodies on ogee-sided altar-pedestals, were manufactured by Messrs. Matthew Boulton and John Fothergill of Soho, Birmingham around 1772. The vase, with its voluted handles terminating in bacchic ram-masks that are festooned with laurel, corresponds to a design for one in bluejohn illustrated in their Pattern Book 1 (illustrated in N. Goodison, Ormolu The Work of Matthew Boulton, London, 1974, pl. 163, fig. m). A pair of perfume-burners of this pattern, with statuary marble pedestals and bluejohn vases, is illustrated in Goodison, op. cit., pl. 141. Amongst related bluejohn vases with this handle pattern are a pair almost certainly commissioned by Sir Edward Knatchbull (d. 1779) for Mersham-Le-Hatch, Kent, sold by Lord Brabourne in these Rooms, 19 November 1992, lot 4 (and again, anonymously, 6 July 1995, lot 10). Another closely related pair was sold in these Rooms, 19 November 1981, lot 8.