SECOND HALF 19TH CENTURY

These impressive ewers, with their bodies of speckled green granite and snake-entwined handles, are probably inspired by a celebrated pair of Louis XVI vases with snake handles and bodies of similarly speckled green porphyry from the Vosges, originally supplied to Marie Antoinette's favourite architect Richard Mique (who created her hamlet at the Petit Trianon), now in the Musée du Louvre, Paris (ilustrated in D. Alcouffe et al., Gilt Bronzes in the Louvre, Paris, 2004, p. 226. cat. 113).