BY MATTHEW BOULTON, CIRCA 1770

Details

A GEORGE III ORMOLU-MOUNTED BLUE-JOHN CASSOLETTE
BY MATTHEW BOULTON, CIRCA 1770
With reversible gadrooned nozzle and tapering body hung with laurel swags, the shoulders with goat's heads, on a turned waisted spirally-fluted socle and square stepped plinth, on ball feet
8¼ in. (21 cm.) high

Provenance

Anonymous sale; Christie's, London, 5 April 1973, lot 10.

Literature

COMPARATIVE LITERATURE
N. Goodison, Matthew Boulton: Ormolu, London, 2002, p. 333, figs. 332-333.

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.

Lot Essay

The 'goat's head vase' is derived from a sketch illustrated in the pattern books. The model was one of the most popular of the smaller vases and first appeared in 1769 when a Mrs Yeats ordered '1 pair of goat's head vauses light blue cheny or enamelled'. In the same year, Sir William Guise ordered a pair with blue-john bodies. Other buyers of goat's head vases include Lord Digby in 1774 and Lord Scarsdale in 1772, who paid £4.4s a pair (see also lot 292 in this sale for further details on Lord Scarsdale). Several models appear with 'antique' medallions, depicting the head of Alexander the Great, suspended from the rim of the each vase (Goodison, op. cit., pp. 331-333).

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