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拍品專文
This magnificent vase once formed part of one of the most important collections of eighteenth-century French decorative arts in the world, that of Sir Richard Wallace, which was eventually left to the British nation as the Wallace Collection in Hertford House, London. An almost identical vase, but with the relief dragons inside the ormolu handles, remains in a collection of comparable importance, that of the Rothschilds at Waddesdon Manor (cat. no. 201), while a further pair of closely related vases is in the Nissim de Camondo Museum, Paris (cat. no. 157). All of these vases were probably supplied by the same marchand-mercier, catering to the taste among sophisticated amateurs for rare and precious porcelains. Crackle-glazed celadon porcelain, known as ‘porcelaine truittée’, was particularly prized by eighteenth-century collectors and on 22 April 1757, the marchand-mercier Lazare Duvaux sold a garniture of vases to the duc d’Orléans for the huge sum of 2,960 livres, of which the central vase must have been very similar, not only in for its celadon crackle glaze, but also for its decoration with dragons in relief, being described as: ‘Un grand vase en urne à dragons de relief, en porcelaine truittée, monté en bronze doré d’or moulu…’
THE ATTRIBUTION OF THE MOUNTS
The mounts, with their powerful, muscular design of scrolls and stylized foliage, can be attributed to the celebrated bronzier and sculpteur Jean-Claude Chambellan Duplessis (1699-1744), known also as a goldsmith and as chief designer at the Sèvres porcelain factory, whoc frequently supplied gilt bronzes to Lazare Duvaux for mounting precious Chinese porcelains. Despite Duplessis' recognition today as one of the most talented and influential designers and bronziers of his day, there has not yet been any serious study of his oeuvre, and only a few pieces can be firmly attributed to him. These include a pair of ormolu braziers commissioned by Jean-Baptiste Machault d'Arnouville for royal presentation in 1742 to the Ambassador of Turkey; one of which is today at the Topkapi Palace Museum, Istanbul. With limited documented examples or indeed patterns available, attention has turned to designs for porcelain during the period 1748 to 1774, when Duplessis was artistic director at Vincennes and its successor, Sèvres. Of particular interest are the balustre rocaille vases made in soft and hard paste porcelain from circa 1750, which were named after him—'Vases Duplessis'—and which feature vigorously scrolling handles similar to the example offered here. A drawing of this design survives in the Sèvres archive (L.H. Roth, C. Le Corbeiller, French Eighteenth-Century Porcelain at the Wadsworth Atheneum; The J. Pierpont Morgan Collection, p. 105, fig. 59-1). Examples of these porcelain vases are at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (acc. no. 24.214.5) and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (acc. no. C.357-1909). A pair in the Indianapolis Museum of Art (acc. no. 1993.63) is applied with gilt-bronze mounts. Furthermore other products of the Sèvres factory display similar characteristics and ornamental motifs: the boldly scrolling, looping handles wrapping the neck and the muscular, quadripartite scroll feet of this vase are echoed in a number of vases produced at Sèvres in the 1750s (R. Savill, The Wallace Collection Catalogue of Sèvres Porcelain, London, 1988, vol. I, pp. 139-171 for a number of related examples). The extreme fluidity of the modeling and the richness of the matte and burnished finishes of this vase, creating a subtle effect of light and shadow, are also salient characteristics of Duplessis' style (G. Sadde, 'Jean-Claude Duplessis, la liberté du style rocaille', L'Estampille-L'Objet d'Art, no. 392, June 2004, pp. 42-51).
Duplessis owed his position and success to a number of influential patrons, including the well-connected Victor-Amédée de Savoie, prince de Carignan, as well as Marc-René de Voyer de Paulmy d'Argenson, marquis de Voyer. Although Duplessis held no official title and never received his maîtrise, he was widely recognized as a master of his craft due to the protection and accessibility to Royal circles that patronage provided. By 1758, he was listed as Orfèvre du Roi in the Sèvres account books. In his early career as a bronzier, Duplessis worked through the intermediary of marchands-merciers, who specialized in ormolu-mounted objects employing the services of a bronzier as required. A number of entries in the Livre-journal of the marchand-mercier Lazare Duvaux show that Duplessis was regularly engaged to provide mounts for Chinese porcelain referred to as celadon in the day books for the marquis de Voyer, Monsieur Gaignat and Madame de Pompadour (L. Courajod, Livre-Journal de Lazare Duvaux, Marchand-Bijoutier Ordinaire du Roy, 1748-1758, Paris, 1873, II, nos. 601, 1713 and 1810). One entry for the marquis de Voyer describes 'Deux gros vases de porcelain celadon, montées par Duplessis en bronze doré d'or moulu' at a cost of 3,000 livres, a vast sum that illustrates the importance of the commission. After several years his reputation had spread and aristocratic clients such as Augustin Blondel de Gagny and the duc de Chaulnes approached him directly. As an independent bronzier, Duplessis would not only have supplied the mounts but also the porcelain. To replenish his stock of East Asian porcelain, he frequented the Parisian salerooms, acquiring in 1767 from the collection of Jean de Jullienne 'pots pourris de porcelain d'ancien japon' and 'un grand vase de porcelain de Chine', the total bill coming to 3,800 livres.
THE WALLACE COLLECTION
Although it is not known when this superb vase was originally acquired, it almost certainly formed part of the fabled collections of French furniture, paintings and works of art assembled over three generations to form the nucleus of the Wallace Collection. Richard Seymour-Conway, 4th Marquess of Hertford (1800-1870), spent much of his life in Paris where he was raised by his mother, who had moved to Paris in 1802 following her estrangement from his father (later the 3rd Marquess of Hertford). Upon the death of the 3rd Marquess, he inherited a vast art collection to which he continued to add, particularly following his purchase of the château de Bagatelle in the bois de Boulogne. Despite his nationality, title and English estates the 4th Marquess would live out most of his life in his apartment on the rue Laffitte, Paris, as one of the richest men in Europe. Upon his death in 1870 all of his unentailed wealth passed to his unacknowledged illegitimate son, Sir Richard Wallace Bt., (1818-1890) who inherited not only his father's vast French collections but also the château de Bagatelle and his apartment in the rue Laffitte. Wallace, also a renowned collector, would continue to add to one of the most significant collections of European decorative arts ever assembled. In 1872, in an extraordinary act of public generosity while Hertford House was being renovated, Wallace loaned a substantial part of his collection (almost six hundred paintings, two hundred and fifty pieces of porcelain, including the vase offered here and over three hundred pieces of furniture) to the Bethnal Green Museum, a branch of the South Kensington Museum, forerunner of the Victoria and Albert Museum, situated in what was then one of the poorest areas of London. Wallace died in 1890 leaving all his property to his wife, Lady Wallace (1818-1897), and it was upon her death that the collection at Hertford House was left to the nation, to be made open to the public. The remaining collection at rue Laffitte and at the château de Bagatelle, which also contained many exceptional works of art, were bequeathed to her secretary, Sir John Murray Scott Bt., (1847-1912) and upon his death, he left the collection at the rue Laffitte apartment to his friend Lady Sackville who sold the collection in its entirely in 1914 to the legendary Parisian dealer Jacques Seligman. Vita Sackville-West, daughter of Lady Sackville, wrote of the magic of 2 Rue Laffitte describing '...a vast apartment on the first floor... a treasure-house which brought visitors from every part of Europe... room after room opened into one into the other... Here indeed one had the 18th century illusion at its height. All around silent and sumptuous stood the priceless furniture of the Wallace Collection.' The remainder of the works of art in London which Murray Scott inherited, including this vase, were sold at Christie's following his death in 1912.
E.M. HODGKINS
Hodgkins was a prolific London 'dealer in old china, antique furniture and works of art', trading at 110 Wardour Street, 5 King Street, 2 Pall Mall, Old Bond Street, and later 158b New Bond Street, who also had premises in Paris (M. Westgarth, 'A Biographical Dictionary of Nineteenth Century Antique and Curiosity Dealers', The Regional Furniture Society, 2009, p. 117). Hodgkins maintained a prestigious list of British aristocratic clients including Lords Brougham, Clifden and Countess Spencer. He also traded with many of the most well-known dealers of the late nineteenth century, including Henry Duveen, Messrs. Durlacher Bros. and Jacques Seligmann. From Hodgkins' account books at the Westminister City Archive it is evident that the dealers often bartered goods as part payment. Hodgkins' magnificent collection of Sèvres porcelain was acquired by the great American collector Henry Walters (d. 1931), and remains at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore.
THE ATTRIBUTION OF THE MOUNTS
The mounts, with their powerful, muscular design of scrolls and stylized foliage, can be attributed to the celebrated bronzier and sculpteur Jean-Claude Chambellan Duplessis (1699-1744), known also as a goldsmith and as chief designer at the Sèvres porcelain factory, whoc frequently supplied gilt bronzes to Lazare Duvaux for mounting precious Chinese porcelains. Despite Duplessis' recognition today as one of the most talented and influential designers and bronziers of his day, there has not yet been any serious study of his oeuvre, and only a few pieces can be firmly attributed to him. These include a pair of ormolu braziers commissioned by Jean-Baptiste Machault d'Arnouville for royal presentation in 1742 to the Ambassador of Turkey; one of which is today at the Topkapi Palace Museum, Istanbul. With limited documented examples or indeed patterns available, attention has turned to designs for porcelain during the period 1748 to 1774, when Duplessis was artistic director at Vincennes and its successor, Sèvres. Of particular interest are the balustre rocaille vases made in soft and hard paste porcelain from circa 1750, which were named after him—'Vases Duplessis'—and which feature vigorously scrolling handles similar to the example offered here. A drawing of this design survives in the Sèvres archive (L.H. Roth, C. Le Corbeiller, French Eighteenth-Century Porcelain at the Wadsworth Atheneum; The J. Pierpont Morgan Collection, p. 105, fig. 59-1). Examples of these porcelain vases are at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (acc. no. 24.214.5) and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (acc. no. C.357-1909). A pair in the Indianapolis Museum of Art (acc. no. 1993.63) is applied with gilt-bronze mounts. Furthermore other products of the Sèvres factory display similar characteristics and ornamental motifs: the boldly scrolling, looping handles wrapping the neck and the muscular, quadripartite scroll feet of this vase are echoed in a number of vases produced at Sèvres in the 1750s (R. Savill, The Wallace Collection Catalogue of Sèvres Porcelain, London, 1988, vol. I, pp. 139-171 for a number of related examples). The extreme fluidity of the modeling and the richness of the matte and burnished finishes of this vase, creating a subtle effect of light and shadow, are also salient characteristics of Duplessis' style (G. Sadde, 'Jean-Claude Duplessis, la liberté du style rocaille', L'Estampille-L'Objet d'Art, no. 392, June 2004, pp. 42-51).
Duplessis owed his position and success to a number of influential patrons, including the well-connected Victor-Amédée de Savoie, prince de Carignan, as well as Marc-René de Voyer de Paulmy d'Argenson, marquis de Voyer. Although Duplessis held no official title and never received his maîtrise, he was widely recognized as a master of his craft due to the protection and accessibility to Royal circles that patronage provided. By 1758, he was listed as Orfèvre du Roi in the Sèvres account books. In his early career as a bronzier, Duplessis worked through the intermediary of marchands-merciers, who specialized in ormolu-mounted objects employing the services of a bronzier as required. A number of entries in the Livre-journal of the marchand-mercier Lazare Duvaux show that Duplessis was regularly engaged to provide mounts for Chinese porcelain referred to as celadon in the day books for the marquis de Voyer, Monsieur Gaignat and Madame de Pompadour (L. Courajod, Livre-Journal de Lazare Duvaux, Marchand-Bijoutier Ordinaire du Roy, 1748-1758, Paris, 1873, II, nos. 601, 1713 and 1810). One entry for the marquis de Voyer describes 'Deux gros vases de porcelain celadon, montées par Duplessis en bronze doré d'or moulu' at a cost of 3,000 livres, a vast sum that illustrates the importance of the commission. After several years his reputation had spread and aristocratic clients such as Augustin Blondel de Gagny and the duc de Chaulnes approached him directly. As an independent bronzier, Duplessis would not only have supplied the mounts but also the porcelain. To replenish his stock of East Asian porcelain, he frequented the Parisian salerooms, acquiring in 1767 from the collection of Jean de Jullienne 'pots pourris de porcelain d'ancien japon' and 'un grand vase de porcelain de Chine', the total bill coming to 3,800 livres.
THE WALLACE COLLECTION
Although it is not known when this superb vase was originally acquired, it almost certainly formed part of the fabled collections of French furniture, paintings and works of art assembled over three generations to form the nucleus of the Wallace Collection. Richard Seymour-Conway, 4th Marquess of Hertford (1800-1870), spent much of his life in Paris where he was raised by his mother, who had moved to Paris in 1802 following her estrangement from his father (later the 3rd Marquess of Hertford). Upon the death of the 3rd Marquess, he inherited a vast art collection to which he continued to add, particularly following his purchase of the château de Bagatelle in the bois de Boulogne. Despite his nationality, title and English estates the 4th Marquess would live out most of his life in his apartment on the rue Laffitte, Paris, as one of the richest men in Europe. Upon his death in 1870 all of his unentailed wealth passed to his unacknowledged illegitimate son, Sir Richard Wallace Bt., (1818-1890) who inherited not only his father's vast French collections but also the château de Bagatelle and his apartment in the rue Laffitte. Wallace, also a renowned collector, would continue to add to one of the most significant collections of European decorative arts ever assembled. In 1872, in an extraordinary act of public generosity while Hertford House was being renovated, Wallace loaned a substantial part of his collection (almost six hundred paintings, two hundred and fifty pieces of porcelain, including the vase offered here and over three hundred pieces of furniture) to the Bethnal Green Museum, a branch of the South Kensington Museum, forerunner of the Victoria and Albert Museum, situated in what was then one of the poorest areas of London. Wallace died in 1890 leaving all his property to his wife, Lady Wallace (1818-1897), and it was upon her death that the collection at Hertford House was left to the nation, to be made open to the public. The remaining collection at rue Laffitte and at the château de Bagatelle, which also contained many exceptional works of art, were bequeathed to her secretary, Sir John Murray Scott Bt., (1847-1912) and upon his death, he left the collection at the rue Laffitte apartment to his friend Lady Sackville who sold the collection in its entirely in 1914 to the legendary Parisian dealer Jacques Seligman. Vita Sackville-West, daughter of Lady Sackville, wrote of the magic of 2 Rue Laffitte describing '...a vast apartment on the first floor... a treasure-house which brought visitors from every part of Europe... room after room opened into one into the other... Here indeed one had the 18th century illusion at its height. All around silent and sumptuous stood the priceless furniture of the Wallace Collection.' The remainder of the works of art in London which Murray Scott inherited, including this vase, were sold at Christie's following his death in 1912.
E.M. HODGKINS
Hodgkins was a prolific London 'dealer in old china, antique furniture and works of art', trading at 110 Wardour Street, 5 King Street, 2 Pall Mall, Old Bond Street, and later 158b New Bond Street, who also had premises in Paris (M. Westgarth, 'A Biographical Dictionary of Nineteenth Century Antique and Curiosity Dealers', The Regional Furniture Society, 2009, p. 117). Hodgkins maintained a prestigious list of British aristocratic clients including Lords Brougham, Clifden and Countess Spencer. He also traded with many of the most well-known dealers of the late nineteenth century, including Henry Duveen, Messrs. Durlacher Bros. and Jacques Seligmann. From Hodgkins' account books at the Westminister City Archive it is evident that the dealers often bartered goods as part payment. Hodgkins' magnificent collection of Sèvres porcelain was acquired by the great American collector Henry Walters (d. 1931), and remains at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore.