Lot Essay
The fashion for embellishing marble chimneypieces with ormolu enrichments perhaps reached its zenith with the chimneypiece in the Salon d'Hercule at the château du Versailles by Antoine Vassé circa 1730 (ill. in P.Verlet, Les Bronzes Dorés Français du XVIII e siécle, Paris 1987, p. 56, fig. 48)