Lot Essay
The pair to this vase was sold anonymously, Christie's London, 13 November 2001, lot 140.
The Maison A l'Escalier de Cristal was established in 1802 by the widow Madame Desarnaud, née Marie-Jeanne-Rosalie Charpentier, who managed the business. She exhibited, to great acclaim, at the 1819 Exposition des Produits de l'Industrie held at the Louvre, Paris. The business with a shop and workshop was based in the Palais Royal, a center of excellence for high quality jewellers, silversmiths and manufacturers of objets de vertu, for which Paris was renowned. They dealt in and carried an extensive stock of porcelain, some of which they mounted, such as the present lot.
A related Chinese vase with crackle glaze mounted in Russia from a drawing by A.N. Voronikhin, also with serpent mounts, is at Peterhof Palace, St. Petersburg, and is illustrated in I. Sychev, Russian Bronze, Moscow, 2003, p. 91.
The Maison A l'Escalier de Cristal was established in 1802 by the widow Madame Desarnaud, née Marie-Jeanne-Rosalie Charpentier, who managed the business. She exhibited, to great acclaim, at the 1819 Exposition des Produits de l'Industrie held at the Louvre, Paris. The business with a shop and workshop was based in the Palais Royal, a center of excellence for high quality jewellers, silversmiths and manufacturers of objets de vertu, for which Paris was renowned. They dealt in and carried an extensive stock of porcelain, some of which they mounted, such as the present lot.
A related Chinese vase with crackle glaze mounted in Russia from a drawing by A.N. Voronikhin, also with serpent mounts, is at Peterhof Palace, St. Petersburg, and is illustrated in I. Sychev, Russian Bronze, Moscow, 2003, p. 91.