THE MOUNTS CIRCA 1820-1840, THE PORCELAIN LATE 17TH CENTURY

These colourful seventeenth century porcelain jars, displaying flowers floating with Buddhist emblems in swirling water, have been transformed into a highly decorative mantelpiece garniture of pot-pourri vases by the addition of ormolu enrichments featuring reeds and bull-maces, sacred to the Arcadian ruler Pan, and reflecting the 'picturesque' fashion of the 1740s. Such vases were associated with fashionable 18th century Parisian dealers (marchands-merciers) such as Lazare Duvaux. Similar reeded handles featured on vases in the St. Petersburg collection of the Counts Stroganoff (see Sir Francis Watson, Chinese Porcelains in European Mounts, New York, 1980, no. 17).