LATE 19TH CENTURY

Serving as wine-coolers from which servants could retrieve bottles, this model of fountain enjoyed lasting popularity from the late 17th Century and throughout the 18th century. As Philippe Marnet, Paris agent to the Court of Parma, noted in 1768: "Placed in the salon or salle à manger, the importance of these rooms was such that one tries to provide the richest decorations possible." Amongst the earliest documented fountains in gilt-lead was that supplied by Jean-Baptiste Tubi after designs by Charles Lebrun in 1672 for the Théatre d'eau at Versailles. In 1750 the Théatre d'eau was destroyed and the sculptures were dispersed. Tubi's fountain is now in the National Gallery of Art, Washington (F. Souchal, French Sculptors of the 17th and 18th Centuries, London, 1987, p. 337, fig. 28).
A fountain of this basic inspiration is illustrated in the 18th Century engraving by Decameron de Boccace, which was designed by Cochin, Gravelot and Eisen and published between 1757-61, although the lead group depicts two putti wrestling with a dolphin. A model after this design was sold from the collection of Karl Lagerfeld, Christie's Monaco, 29 April 2000, lot 330 (FFr.2,457,500; $342,000).