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拍品專文
The George III candelabra, of egg-shaped vases with laurel-wreath bases, are designed in the Roman 'antique taste' to evoke Ovid's 'Loves of the Gods' or Metamorphoses, and the History of Jupiter, whose seduction of Leda in the guise of a swan lead to the birth of Rome's founders, Romulus and Remus.
Generally known as 'Wing [caryatid] figured Vases', they derived from a design by Sir William Chambers (d. 1796) and were invented in the early 1770s by the Birmingham industrialist Matthew Boulton (d. 1809), following the recent establishment of his 'or moulu manufactory at Soho in Staffordshire' in partnership with John Fothergill (N. Goodison, Ormolu: The Work of Matthew Boulton, London, 1974, pp. 166-168).
The use of 'Caryatides' as antique ornament had been promoted at this period by the 2nd edition (1768) of Sir William Chambers' Treatise on Civil Architecture, 1759. In 1770 Chambers, architect to George III, provided Boulton with ideas for related palm and laurel-enriched 'bacchic' vases, with hermed caryatids of Arcadian satyrs. One of these designs, invented as a chimneypiece garniture for Queen Charlotte's Buckingham House apartment, is likely to have been included in Chambers' exhibits at the 1770 Royal Academy, and comprising, 'Various Vases etc. to be executed in or moulu, by Mr. Bolton, for their Majesties' (J. Harris and M. Snodin, Sir William Chambers, London, 1997, pp.155, 156 and pl. 231). A version of this design was adapted by Boulton, and named after George III as the 'King's vase' (N. Goodison, 'The King's Vases', Furniture History, 1972, pp. 35-40, pls. 34 and 33a). Other vases were executed to the same shape, but their branches were comprised of caryatic 'bacchantae', the nymph-companions of the satyrs at the Feasts of Bacchus (ibid., pl. 33B).
The present ovoid vases stand on statuary marble plinths, and are of bacchic thyrsus-finialed 'krater' form. Their trompe l'oeil marble bodies of opaque Stourbridge glass probably supplied by James Keir (ibid., p.167), are wreathed by flowered and pearl-festooned ribbon-guilloches; while their handles, incorporate 'vase-and-tazza' candlebranches and issue from addorsed Egyptian sphinx or winged-nymph caryatic herms. A sketch of these vases, from Boulton and Fothergill's Pattern Book I, p. 156, surviving in the Boulton archives in the Birmingham Assay Office Library, bears the number 238 (Goodison, op. cit., 1974, fig. 162, no.B).
Boulton exhibited some of his 'sphinx' vases at the exhibition sale of his 'superb and elegant produce' held at Messrs Christie and Ansell's London show-rooms in April 1772. However he had already sold one of this pattern for £12.12.0., when the Earl of Stamford visited Soho in January of the same year. At the sale a pair of vases, with single nozzle branches and a third nozzle concealed in their reversible lids, was purchased by Robert Child (d.1782) for Osterley Park, Middlesex where they were placed on pedestals designed by the architect Robert Adam (d. 1792) (J. Hardy, Osterley Park House, London, 1985, p. 63). Those purchased by Child were listed in Boulton's account with William Matthews, his London banker, as 'A pair of wing-figured vases white bodies without pedestals ... 29.8.0'. However, they were then delivered to another client, so Boulton had to despatch a different pair to Osterley, where they arrived in July 1772 (ibid., pp. 166-8 and figs. 127-131). Another pair was acquired by Tsar Paul I (Pavlovsk Park and Palace, Leningrad, 1975, pls. 41-44). A single candelabrum of this model with Derbyshire fluorspar body, is in the Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky, the gift of James C. Codell, Jr. Another candelabrum, also with fluorspar body, is illustrated in Mallett: The Age of Matthew Boulton, n.d. [2000], p. 64.
Generally known as 'Wing [caryatid] figured Vases', they derived from a design by Sir William Chambers (d. 1796) and were invented in the early 1770s by the Birmingham industrialist Matthew Boulton (d. 1809), following the recent establishment of his 'or moulu manufactory at Soho in Staffordshire' in partnership with John Fothergill (N. Goodison, Ormolu: The Work of Matthew Boulton, London, 1974, pp. 166-168).
The use of 'Caryatides' as antique ornament had been promoted at this period by the 2nd edition (1768) of Sir William Chambers' Treatise on Civil Architecture, 1759. In 1770 Chambers, architect to George III, provided Boulton with ideas for related palm and laurel-enriched 'bacchic' vases, with hermed caryatids of Arcadian satyrs. One of these designs, invented as a chimneypiece garniture for Queen Charlotte's Buckingham House apartment, is likely to have been included in Chambers' exhibits at the 1770 Royal Academy, and comprising, 'Various Vases etc. to be executed in or moulu, by Mr. Bolton, for their Majesties' (J. Harris and M. Snodin, Sir William Chambers, London, 1997, pp.155, 156 and pl. 231). A version of this design was adapted by Boulton, and named after George III as the 'King's vase' (N. Goodison, 'The King's Vases', Furniture History, 1972, pp. 35-40, pls. 34 and 33a). Other vases were executed to the same shape, but their branches were comprised of caryatic 'bacchantae', the nymph-companions of the satyrs at the Feasts of Bacchus (ibid., pl. 33B).
The present ovoid vases stand on statuary marble plinths, and are of bacchic thyrsus-finialed 'krater' form. Their trompe l'oeil marble bodies of opaque Stourbridge glass probably supplied by James Keir (ibid., p.167), are wreathed by flowered and pearl-festooned ribbon-guilloches; while their handles, incorporate 'vase-and-tazza' candlebranches and issue from addorsed Egyptian sphinx or winged-nymph caryatic herms. A sketch of these vases, from Boulton and Fothergill's Pattern Book I, p. 156, surviving in the Boulton archives in the Birmingham Assay Office Library, bears the number 238 (Goodison, op. cit., 1974, fig. 162, no.B).
Boulton exhibited some of his 'sphinx' vases at the exhibition sale of his 'superb and elegant produce' held at Messrs Christie and Ansell's London show-rooms in April 1772. However he had already sold one of this pattern for £12.12.0., when the Earl of Stamford visited Soho in January of the same year. At the sale a pair of vases, with single nozzle branches and a third nozzle concealed in their reversible lids, was purchased by Robert Child (d.1782) for Osterley Park, Middlesex where they were placed on pedestals designed by the architect Robert Adam (d. 1792) (J. Hardy, Osterley Park House, London, 1985, p. 63). Those purchased by Child were listed in Boulton's account with William Matthews, his London banker, as 'A pair of wing-figured vases white bodies without pedestals ... 29.8.0'. However, they were then delivered to another client, so Boulton had to despatch a different pair to Osterley, where they arrived in July 1772 (ibid., pp. 166-8 and figs. 127-131). Another pair was acquired by Tsar Paul I (Pavlovsk Park and Palace, Leningrad, 1975, pls. 41-44). A single candelabrum of this model with Derbyshire fluorspar body, is in the Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky, the gift of James C. Codell, Jr. Another candelabrum, also with fluorspar body, is illustrated in Mallett: The Age of Matthew Boulton, n.d. [2000], p. 64.