A SEVRES (HARDPASTE) TWO-HANDLED MEDICI VASE

CIRCA 1814, STENCILLED WITH INTERLACED 'L'S ENCLOSING FLEUR-DE-LYS AND SEVRES MARK ABOVE GILT '92' TO INNER RIM AND IRON-RED CROWNED EAGLE TO FOOT

Details

A SEVRES (HARDPASTE) TWO-HANDLED MEDICI VASE
CIRCA 1814, STENCILLED WITH INTERLACED 'L'S ENCLOSING FLEUR-DE-LYS AND SEVRES MARK ABOVE GILT '92' TO INNER RIM AND IRON-RED CROWNED EAGLE TO FOOT
With gilt bearded satyr mask handles below column capitals, painted with a parkland scene of the 'Château de St. Leu', within a titled rectangular cartouche, reserved on a richly gilt band chased to the reverse with a laurel wreath between torches suspending a swag of flowers, fruit and cones, with flowers issuing scrolling leaves and rosettes above the handles, on a dark-blue ground enamelled and gilt with bows and hippocampi below the rim and guilloche pattern, meandering fruiting ivy and quiver, bow and rosette bands above stiff leaves, the spreading foot supported by a square section base
16 in. (40.6 cm.) high

Provenance

Probably supplied to Louis Bonaparte, comte Saint-Leu, on 17 September 1819.
Anonymous sale, Christie's, Monaco, 20 June 1994, lot 16.

Lot Essay

The scene on the current vase is taken from the engraving in Alexandre de Laborde's Description des nouveaux jardins de la France et de ses anciens châteaux of 1808 after paintings by Constant Bourgeois. Saint-Leu is the site for two châteaux situated in the commune of Saint-Leu-la-Forêt on the edge of the forest of Montmorency, north-west of Paris. Both châteaux were confiscated during the Revolution and were subsequently bought in 1804 by Louis Bonaparte who married Hortense de Beauharnais. After a brief reign as King of Holland from 1806 - 1811 he took the title comte de Saint-Leu. It is there that he is buried.

The vase is recorded in the retail shop on 16 September 1814, one of a pair described in the archives as '2 Vases forme Medicis fond bleau riche décor en or cartel de paysage, Vues de Morfontaine et de Saint Leu' (Registre Vv1, folio 24 verso, no. 56) painted by Nicolas Antoine Lebel and Jean-Charles Develly. The pair formed part of a large order for 'La Cour de Rome' which was delivered on 17 September 1819. At this date Napoleon's son, who was given the title of 'King of Rome', was living at Schönbrunn, while Louis Bonaparte, Napoleon's brother and the owner of Saint-Leu was exiled in Rome.

This form was popular throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, this particular adaptation was designed by the multifarious and talented director of the manufactory Alexandre Brongniart in 1806. For a vase of similar form with Egptian views, see M. Brunet and T. Préaud, Sèvres, des origins à nos jours, Fribourg, 1978, p. 288, pl. 340.

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