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Lot Essay
Deriving from the Greek word for "purple", porphyry has been prized since antiquity for its lustrous colour and remarkable hardness. Only mined at Mons Porphyrius in Egypt, the existence of porphyry in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries was only possible through the resourceful and economical re-use of this most valued of hardstones - most often from ancient classical columns. The Romans imported porphyry in great quantities from ancient Egypt, using it both in architectural schemes and to carve portrait busts. Its rich purple colour, the Imperial symbol of power, was no doubt of special significance in ancient Rome. With the rediscovery of classical Rome in the Renaissance period, the potent symbolism of porphyry was prized once again, and it was avidly collected by powerful figures such as the Medicis, Louis XIV (who had a buying agent in Rome for his acquisitions), and the cardinals de Richelieu and Mazarin.
The taste for exotic stones was again revived in the late Louis XV and Louis XVI period, when the duc d'Aumont, a noted connoisseur-collector, established a workshop at the hôtel des Menus-Plaisirs to cut and polish precious marbles and hard-stones, under the direction of the architect François-Joseph Béllanger and the Italian stone-cutter Augustin Bocciardi.
Although obviously lacking the portait busts of Nerva and Trajan, the column offered here bears very close similarities in size, proportions and degree of entasis (the gentle swelling to the mid section) to the magnificent columns in the Louvre, Paris, dated to the 2nd century AD (see Malgouyres and Blanc-Riehl, Porphyre La Pierre Pourpre des Ptolémées aux Bonaparte, Paris, 2003, pp. 51-4, nos. 7-8).
The taste for exotic stones was again revived in the late Louis XV and Louis XVI period, when the duc d'Aumont, a noted connoisseur-collector, established a workshop at the hôtel des Menus-Plaisirs to cut and polish precious marbles and hard-stones, under the direction of the architect François-Joseph Béllanger and the Italian stone-cutter Augustin Bocciardi.
Although obviously lacking the portait busts of Nerva and Trajan, the column offered here bears very close similarities in size, proportions and degree of entasis (the gentle swelling to the mid section) to the magnificent columns in the Louvre, Paris, dated to the 2nd century AD (see Malgouyres and Blanc-Riehl, Porphyre La Pierre Pourpre des Ptolémées aux Bonaparte, Paris, 2003, pp. 51-4, nos. 7-8).