BY MATTHEW BOULTON, CIRCA 1769-70

THE 'SPINX' DESIGN
The sphinx pattern evolved from the tripod, sphinx-supported cassolette popularized by Joseph-Marie Vien in his Suite de vases composé dans le Goût antique (1760). While these designs partly evoked the Roman columbarium, they also resonated with Homeric notions of 'sacrifices at love's altar in antiquity'.

The architect Robert Adam (d. 1792) played a central role in promoting Etruscan-style vases as architectural ornaments within salons and reception rooms decorated à la française. Equally influential, however, was James 'Athenian' Stuart (d. 1788), the Rome-trained artist and protégé of the Society of Dilettanti. In his 1750s scheme for Kedleston, Derbyshire, Stuart introduced a chimneypiece garniture symbolizing 'Eternal Love', featuring a sphinx-flanked urn. He also designed a related sphinx-supported vase for the dining-room hearth (see Stuart's 'Kedleston' design in Susan Weber Soros, ed., James 'Athenian' Stuart, New York, 2006, fig. 6-31).

In the present instance, it was Sir William Chambers (d. 1796), a fellow Rome-trained architect, who in 1770 encouraged Matthew Boulton to develop this pattern of 'Eternity' cassolette for the Queen's House (now Buckingham Palace), where it formed an appropriate counterpart to Queen Charlotte's mantel clock. In March of that year, Boulton recorded a visit to the palace to determine 'how many vases it would take to furnish', in place of porcelain, the chimneypiece in the Queen's Apartment (N. Goodison, Ormolu: Matthew Boulton, London, 1974, pp. 31-32, 85, 183-84). Chambers' design for the vase was likely among those he exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1770 as 'to be executed in ormolu, by Mr. Bolton, for their Majesties'. At this time he also produced a design for an urn-capped clock supported by sphinxes (see J. Harris and M. Snodin, Sir William Chambers, London, 1997, p. 157, fig. 233, and p. 158, fig. 235). Queen Charlotte's cassolettes, or 'sphinx' vases, were intended to stand beside a pair of Boulton's so-called 'King's' vases, a design named in honor of George III (J. Roberts, ed., George III and Queen Charlotte, London, 2004, p. 269, no. 275).

In March of 1771, Matthew Boulton asked Robert Bradbury of Castleton, Derbyshire, to supply six blue john bodies for the 'sphinx' vases. It was a month before Boulton held his sale at James Christie's in London, in which he ultimately included ten examples of the 'sphinx' pattern vase. They were described in the auction catalogue as 'in the antique taste, radix amethysti and ormolu, lined with silver and perforated for essence, supported by four sphinxes upon an ornamental base of ebony' (Goodison, Matthew Boulton: Ormolu, London, 2004, p. 350).

THE GLASS PRODUCTION
The bodies of the ‘Sphinx’ vases were apparently always fashioned from blue john, though the square pedestal bases vary considerably. Archival records (ibid.) reference simulated hardstones such as lapis lazuli and aventurine, as well as agate and white marble. It is likely that Boulton outsourced the manufacture of these glass elements, and he is documented as receiving supplies from James Keir (1735-1820). Keir, a Scottish-born chemist, geologist, industrialist, inventor, and, like Boulton, an important member of the Birmingham Lunar Society, leased and managed a long-established glassworks at Amblecote near Stourbridge beginning in 1772. He first met James Watt at Boulton’s house in 1768 and soon formed a close professional relationship with Boulton. Keir was subsequently commissioned to produce glass bodies for vases, and it is reasonable to suggest that he also supplied the simulated lapis-lazuli panels found on the present vase.

RELATED VASES
A pair of sphinx vases with white marble bases, rather than simulated lapis lazuli, is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (64.101.1634; see also S. Walker, ed., Vasemania, New York, 2004, no. 45). Another pair, with bases matching those of the present lot but with lighter-colored blue john bodies, is in the Royal Collection (RCIN 6095; see Goodison, 1974, pp. 163–65, figs. 94, 96–99; Goodison, 2002, pp. 350–53; Roberts, p. 270, no. 276). A pair with red, rather than blue, simulated lapis lazuli bases is in the collection at Anglesey Abbey, Cambridgeshire (NT 517287). A single sphinx vase, apparently identical to the present example, is at Dorneywood House and Gardens, Buckinghamshire (NT 1507140) and another example from the collection of Lady Agnes Bateman (1831–1918), Oakley Park, Suffolk, was sold Christie's, London, 10 July 2019, lot 62. A further pair of this rare 'sphinx' model, with blue john stems, is also in the Aitken Collection.