CIRCA 1735-40

Porcelain and hardstone vases mounted with silver, silver-gilt and increasingly gilt-bronze became a lucrative practice among the Parisian marchands-merciers. The predominance of ormolu-mounted hardstone vases figures largely in the recorded inventory of Claude-François Julliot in 1777 (see C. Sargentson, Merchants and Luxury Markets. London, 1996, p.92). In addition to these luxury items, imitations of the richer and more expensive materials were also sold as curiosities, although these still maintained a high level of craftmanship. Painted papier mâché was often recorded but the use of enamelled copper is highly unusual, and may indicate that these were imported or made in a center other than Paris. In contrast to the present objects, the few enamelled copper items imported from England were purposefully sold as English curiosities in Magasins Anglais such as Mme Blakely's.

Closely related confronting dragon mounts, facing in opposite directions and whose tails conjoin with the base mount, appear on two Meissen porcelain bowls in the Wrightsman collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (illustrated in F.J.B. Watson, The Wrightsman Collection, volume II, New York, 1966, p.457, fig.256A,B). Another pair of Chinese celadon porcelain ewers also in the Wrightsman collection are similarly mounted (illustrated Watson, op.cit, p.432, fig.242 A,B). While the role of marchands-merciers in the design process is varied and complex, some are known to have retained control of particular bronze mount designs as the mercier would directly commission the piece and consequently take ownership of the mold itself. Interestingly, the marchand-mercier Simon-Henri Delahoguette stocked a number of painted papier mâché vases, and two vases of this material were embellished with dragon-form mounts in giltwood rather than gilt-bronze.