BY MATTHEW BOULTON, CIRCA 1770

Sir Nicholas Goodison records four pairs of these vases with identical mounts: a pair with blue (silvered) lacquer bodies and fluted lids at Syon House (ibid., pl. 258); another similar pair at the H. de Young Museum, San Francisco (the gift of Mr and Mrs Robert A. McGowan, 1982); a pair with white marble bodies and pierced lids, as in the case of the present vase, were previously with Partridge (ibid., pl. 259); and a pair in the Hermitage with blue john bodies, pierced lids, and additional green stone bases, probably from one of the Russian lapidary works, which were acquired in 1915 from the State Museum Fund (ibid, p. 297; L. Dukelskaya ed., The Hermitage: English Art, Leningrad, 1979, fig. 181, inv. no. 1561-2). The oval medallions derive from A.F. Gori's Museum Florentinum, 1731-1766, vol. II (1732), Gemmae Antiquae, and specifically copy plates XVI (Thalia), LXIX (Victory Salutaris), LXXIII (Woman at Altar) and LXXVII (Polyxena). Boulton and Fothergill had copies of some of the volumes of Gori's twelve volume book, though these were only purchased in 1771; it seems likely, therefore, that the designs for the medallions were copied from someone else's copy of the book or that they bought plaster casts of the images from which their mounts were made (ibid., pp. 92-94, figs. 61-62).