EARLY 19TH CENTURY

Details

A GERMAN ORMOLU-MOUNTED BLUE-PAINTED STEEL TRIPOD PERFUME-BURNER
Early 19th Century
The later circular white-speckled red porphyry veneered top with a kidney-shaped opening in the middle, above a moulded panelled frieze with two swans drinking out of a fountain, flanked by vases with dragon-handles and surmounted by a lion-trophy, fitted with a brass container above a rounded pierced coal-basket decorated with repoussé mounts of scrolling flowers and foliage and ending in a pine-cone, on square tapering legs with stop-fluted burning torches and terminating in giltwood lion-paw feet
32 in. (81 cm.) high; 22¼ in. (56.5 cm.) diameter

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.

Descriptif du lot

The perfume-burner or 'athenienne' is conceived as a festive Grecian tripod altar celebrating Love's triumph. Deriving from its Bacchic thyrsus-finiale, the tazza is fitted between tripod feet, which terminate in Bacchic lion paws. While the legs are enriched with bas-reliefs of Hymen's palm-flowered torches, the tazza displays tablets of bacchic trophies in pedestal-supported and swan-guarded urns, and these alternate with palm-flowered swans drinking at a fountain. The swans evoke the triumphal chariot of Venus as Nature deity. Its Bacchic pattern derives from Percier and Fontaine's, Recueil de décorations, published in 1801.

En savoir plus sur IMPORTANT EUROPEAN FURNITURE,SCULPTURE & TAPESTRIES

View All