A PAIR OF IMPORTANT FRENCH SILVER-GILT WINE COOLERS

MAKER'S MARK OF JEAN-BAPTISTE-CLAUDE ODIOT, PARIS, CIRCA 1819

细节

A PAIR OF IMPORTANT FRENCH SILVER-GILT WINE COOLERS
Maker's mark of Jean-Baptiste-Claude Odiot, Paris, circa 1819
Each urn form, on a spreading circular base with gadrooned band and engraved with monogram AB below a coronet, the body applied with a calyx of alternating waterleaves and acanthus leaves and above, on one side applied with a centaur playing a lyre and, on the other, a female centaur playing pipes and carrying a winged putto on her back, the neck with a band of alternating grapevines and paterae on a matte ground, the handles formed as intertwined serpents issuing from an anthemion join, marked on bases and on necks
13in. (34.3cm.) high; 223oz. 10dwt. (6958gr.) (2)

拍品专文

This pair of wine coolers is closely related to the pair in Odiot's magnificent silver-gilt service made for Count Nikolai Demidoff (the related wine coolers sold at Christie's, Geneva, November 13, 1990, lot 86.) A drawing for the design of both wine coolers in Odiot's archives shows alternate types of handles as well as alternate applied relief decoration. Odiot's designer based the applied decoration of the Demidoff coolers and the present examples on an engraved plate in L'Antiquit explique, an illustrated book of antiquities compiled by Bernard de Montfaucon and published in Paris in 1719. The antique frieze in Montfaucon shows two centaurs; Odiot's modeller made a bronze relief after each centaur, which was then cast in silver and placed on either side of the coolers (see illustrations).

Photo caption: Plate from Bernard de Montfaucon's L'Antiquit explique, published in Paris 1719, and used by Odiot as the source for the decoration on these wine coolers.

Photo caption: Odiot's bronze models for the applied decoration, Courtesy of Maison Odiot, Paris