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Lot Essay
THE MODEL: 'POISSONS DE PORCELAINE CELADON'
This celebrated model is first recorded in the Livre-Journal of the marchand-mercier Lazare Duvaux in 1750. On 16 October, Louis XV's mistress Madame de Pompadour, (née Antoinette Poisson) acquired '621. Du 10 Mme la Marq. de Pompadour..Quatre morceaux de porcelaine céladon, dont deux en forme de cornets & deux poissons, le tout garni en bronze doré d'or moulu'. In 1752, the marquise bought a further deux poissons céladon (cabinet de Versailles) and the taste rapidly spread throughout the most fashionable collectors a Court, particularly among amateurs such as M. Gaignat, Jean de Juliennne and Blondel d'Azincourt.
The enduring popularity of the model throughout the second half of the eighteenth century is confirmed both through Duvaux's Livre-Journal and the comparatively high proliferation of this model in eighteenth-century sale catalogues and inventories. Indeed, even as the ancien régime was crumbling, Louis XVI's Commander-in-Chief of the ill-fated Swiss Guards, the Baron de Besenval, was immortalized in Henri-Pierre Danloux's 1791 portrait contemplating a mounted celadon garniture upon his mantelpiece, including a ewer that appears to be of precisely the same model as the present lot.
Duvaux's Livre-Journal reveals the discrepancy in cost between the varying models and the quality of the ciseleur, although the cost of the porcelain itself far exceeded that of the ormolu mounts. Thus, the pair acquired by Watteau's great patron Jean de Julienne's from Duvaux on 27 June 1753, and described as 'Deux poissons de porcelaine céladon, formant des cruches, montés en bronze doré d'or moulu', cost 960 livres. When M. Gaignat acquired 'Deux poissons d'ancienne porcelaine céladon, garnis en bronze doré d'or moulu, form de buire', in 1751, his pair cost 1,200 livres and was depicted by Gabriel de Saint-Aubin as marginalia in one of his sale catalogues. The pair acquired by Blondel d'Azincourt, the Intendant des Menus-Plaisirs and a most exacting patron, 17 October 1755 cost almost double the first: 'M. d'Azincourt..Deux poissons aussi céladon montés en buires, 1800 l'. A pair mounted as ewers was also sold to the ‘Prince de Turenne’ on 13 December 1754 and to ‘Monseigneur le Duc d’Orléans’ on 20 March 1756.
A clearer understanding of the relative costs of such elaborate ormolu mounts vis-à-vis the porcelain can be gleaned again from Duvaux, who in 1752 supplied Madame de Pompadour with 'Quatre pieds à contours en cuivre ciselé doré d'or moulu pour deux petits vases de porcelain brune & deux poissons céladon (Cabinet de Versailles), [42 l]'.
A sublime reflection of the pittoresque fantasy in the full-blown Rococo style, this form of ewer was only ever intended as ornamental. Although distinctive, categoric identification of this model in eighteenth-century sales records is near-impossible owing to both the brief descriptions and the fact that three closely related models were executed, all presumably by the same bronzier working for Duvaux. These three models comprise:
VASES OF THE PRESENT 'BARON DE BESENVAL' MODEL, WITH THE FISHES' MOUTHS AS SPOUTS:
- a pair, previously in the Rodolphe Kann Collection, Paris and the Bromberg Collection, Hamburg, later sold from the Wildenstein Collection at Christie's, London, 14-15 December 2005, lot 45 (£456,000), and subsequently sold Christie's, London, 8 July 2021, lot 5 (£562,500), the latter sale being subject to a settlement agreement between the owner and the heirs of Henry and Hertha Bromberg
- a pair sold from the collection of Consuelo Vanderbilt, Sotheby's, New York, 9 December 1994, lot 136
- a pair at Harewood House, Yorkshire
- a garniture of three in the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon (Isabel Pereira Coutinho, Gulbenkian Museum, 1998, no. 100, p. 126)
- a pair in the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (1927.165-6)
- a pair sold by Lord Robert Crichton-Stuart, Sotheby’s, London, 3 July 1959, lot 114
VASES OF THE 'WIDENER' MODEL, WITH THE TAILS AS THE SPOUTS:
- a pair from the Hastings Collection at Melton Constable, Norfolk, previously in the Collection of Peter A.B. Widener, Lynnewood Hall, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania; and now in the Widener Collection at the National Gallery of Art, Washington (discussed in Sir Francis Watson, 'Mounted Oriental Porcelain', Exhibition Catalogue, Washington, 1986, no. 32)
- a pair in the Royal Collection (RCIN 360), their bodies made in different kilns but matched as a pair presumably by the same marchand-mercier at the time of their mounting, possibly acquired by the Prince Regent in 1818
- a pair sold Christie's, New York, 7 February 2025, lot 22
- a pair sold (without dating) from the Basil and Elise Goulandris Collection at Christie’s, London, 11 June 1992, lot 64
VASES IN THE FORM OF PAIRED CARP:
- the central vase of the Gulbenkian Garniture cited above
- that in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (illustrated in J. Lunsingh Scheerler, Chinesisches und Japanisches Porzellan in europaîschen Fassungen, Wurzburg, 1980, p. 336, fig. 329)
- those offered anonymously at Sotheby's, New York, 3 May 1986, lot 40
THE COMTE AND COMTESSE NIEL
Born Victoire Gasquet James, the Comtesse was one of the four heirs of both her mother Elizabeth Bleeker Tibbits Pratt’s immense New York Pratt banking fortune and her father Amedee de Gasquet James’ equally large New Orleans fortune. During her childhood, the Comtesse, her parents and siblings led a Henry Jamesian existence moving from grand house to grand house in France and America. However, in 1911, after the Comtesse’s father died, her mother married the Grand Duke of Mecklenburgh-Schwerin, Raymond Abel de Libran. In 1921 the Cometesse married the Comte de Niel and settled into married life at No. 44 Avenue Gabriel. In the early fifties they began to collect and study books, pictures, souvenirs, bibelots and furniture that had once been owned by the French royal family in the latter half of the 18th century. These rare and precious survivals of the Revolution and Republic were discovered with the help of the leading antique dealers of the post-war era such as Cailleux, Fabius and Wildenstein. The objects were obtained from other collectors, as well as from the descendants of aristocratic families, and discovered in the sale rooms of the time. From 1954, the couple began to give generously to the Royal Palace of Versailles; they were celebrated for refusing to lend any part of their collection, preferring instead to donate Royal pictures, furniture and works of art outright. Treasures made for and belonging to Madame du Barry, Marie Antoinette and Louis XV, presumed lost during the Revolution, now found their way back to the palace for which they had been originally destined. Over the years the Comte and Comtesse became by far the most important patrons of Versailles and other public collections in France. Of their remaining collection, a group of 130 lots of French fine and decorative art was sold Comte et Comtesse Niel: A Shared Passion, Christie's, Paris, 16 April 2012.
This celebrated model is first recorded in the Livre-Journal of the marchand-mercier Lazare Duvaux in 1750. On 16 October, Louis XV's mistress Madame de Pompadour, (née Antoinette Poisson) acquired '621. Du 10 Mme la Marq. de Pompadour..Quatre morceaux de porcelaine céladon, dont deux en forme de cornets & deux poissons, le tout garni en bronze doré d'or moulu'. In 1752, the marquise bought a further deux poissons céladon (cabinet de Versailles) and the taste rapidly spread throughout the most fashionable collectors a Court, particularly among amateurs such as M. Gaignat, Jean de Juliennne and Blondel d'Azincourt.
The enduring popularity of the model throughout the second half of the eighteenth century is confirmed both through Duvaux's Livre-Journal and the comparatively high proliferation of this model in eighteenth-century sale catalogues and inventories. Indeed, even as the ancien régime was crumbling, Louis XVI's Commander-in-Chief of the ill-fated Swiss Guards, the Baron de Besenval, was immortalized in Henri-Pierre Danloux's 1791 portrait contemplating a mounted celadon garniture upon his mantelpiece, including a ewer that appears to be of precisely the same model as the present lot.
Duvaux's Livre-Journal reveals the discrepancy in cost between the varying models and the quality of the ciseleur, although the cost of the porcelain itself far exceeded that of the ormolu mounts. Thus, the pair acquired by Watteau's great patron Jean de Julienne's from Duvaux on 27 June 1753, and described as 'Deux poissons de porcelaine céladon, formant des cruches, montés en bronze doré d'or moulu', cost 960 livres. When M. Gaignat acquired 'Deux poissons d'ancienne porcelaine céladon, garnis en bronze doré d'or moulu, form de buire', in 1751, his pair cost 1,200 livres and was depicted by Gabriel de Saint-Aubin as marginalia in one of his sale catalogues. The pair acquired by Blondel d'Azincourt, the Intendant des Menus-Plaisirs and a most exacting patron, 17 October 1755 cost almost double the first: 'M. d'Azincourt..Deux poissons aussi céladon montés en buires, 1800 l'. A pair mounted as ewers was also sold to the ‘Prince de Turenne’ on 13 December 1754 and to ‘Monseigneur le Duc d’Orléans’ on 20 March 1756.
A clearer understanding of the relative costs of such elaborate ormolu mounts vis-à-vis the porcelain can be gleaned again from Duvaux, who in 1752 supplied Madame de Pompadour with 'Quatre pieds à contours en cuivre ciselé doré d'or moulu pour deux petits vases de porcelain brune & deux poissons céladon (Cabinet de Versailles), [42 l]'.
A sublime reflection of the pittoresque fantasy in the full-blown Rococo style, this form of ewer was only ever intended as ornamental. Although distinctive, categoric identification of this model in eighteenth-century sales records is near-impossible owing to both the brief descriptions and the fact that three closely related models were executed, all presumably by the same bronzier working for Duvaux. These three models comprise:
VASES OF THE PRESENT 'BARON DE BESENVAL' MODEL, WITH THE FISHES' MOUTHS AS SPOUTS:
- a pair, previously in the Rodolphe Kann Collection, Paris and the Bromberg Collection, Hamburg, later sold from the Wildenstein Collection at Christie's, London, 14-15 December 2005, lot 45 (£456,000), and subsequently sold Christie's, London, 8 July 2021, lot 5 (£562,500), the latter sale being subject to a settlement agreement between the owner and the heirs of Henry and Hertha Bromberg
- a pair sold from the collection of Consuelo Vanderbilt, Sotheby's, New York, 9 December 1994, lot 136
- a pair at Harewood House, Yorkshire
- a garniture of three in the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon (Isabel Pereira Coutinho, Gulbenkian Museum, 1998, no. 100, p. 126)
- a pair in the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (1927.165-6)
- a pair sold by Lord Robert Crichton-Stuart, Sotheby’s, London, 3 July 1959, lot 114
VASES OF THE 'WIDENER' MODEL, WITH THE TAILS AS THE SPOUTS:
- a pair from the Hastings Collection at Melton Constable, Norfolk, previously in the Collection of Peter A.B. Widener, Lynnewood Hall, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania; and now in the Widener Collection at the National Gallery of Art, Washington (discussed in Sir Francis Watson, 'Mounted Oriental Porcelain', Exhibition Catalogue, Washington, 1986, no. 32)
- a pair in the Royal Collection (RCIN 360), their bodies made in different kilns but matched as a pair presumably by the same marchand-mercier at the time of their mounting, possibly acquired by the Prince Regent in 1818
- a pair sold Christie's, New York, 7 February 2025, lot 22
- a pair sold (without dating) from the Basil and Elise Goulandris Collection at Christie’s, London, 11 June 1992, lot 64
VASES IN THE FORM OF PAIRED CARP:
- the central vase of the Gulbenkian Garniture cited above
- that in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (illustrated in J. Lunsingh Scheerler, Chinesisches und Japanisches Porzellan in europaîschen Fassungen, Wurzburg, 1980, p. 336, fig. 329)
- those offered anonymously at Sotheby's, New York, 3 May 1986, lot 40
THE COMTE AND COMTESSE NIEL
Born Victoire Gasquet James, the Comtesse was one of the four heirs of both her mother Elizabeth Bleeker Tibbits Pratt’s immense New York Pratt banking fortune and her father Amedee de Gasquet James’ equally large New Orleans fortune. During her childhood, the Comtesse, her parents and siblings led a Henry Jamesian existence moving from grand house to grand house in France and America. However, in 1911, after the Comtesse’s father died, her mother married the Grand Duke of Mecklenburgh-Schwerin, Raymond Abel de Libran. In 1921 the Cometesse married the Comte de Niel and settled into married life at No. 44 Avenue Gabriel. In the early fifties they began to collect and study books, pictures, souvenirs, bibelots and furniture that had once been owned by the French royal family in the latter half of the 18th century. These rare and precious survivals of the Revolution and Republic were discovered with the help of the leading antique dealers of the post-war era such as Cailleux, Fabius and Wildenstein. The objects were obtained from other collectors, as well as from the descendants of aristocratic families, and discovered in the sale rooms of the time. From 1954, the couple began to give generously to the Royal Palace of Versailles; they were celebrated for refusing to lend any part of their collection, preferring instead to donate Royal pictures, furniture and works of art outright. Treasures made for and belonging to Madame du Barry, Marie Antoinette and Louis XV, presumed lost during the Revolution, now found their way back to the palace for which they had been originally destined. Over the years the Comte and Comtesse became by far the most important patrons of Versailles and other public collections in France. Of their remaining collection, a group of 130 lots of French fine and decorative art was sold Comte et Comtesse Niel: A Shared Passion, Christie's, Paris, 16 April 2012.