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Lot Essay
THE DESIGN
This magnificent bacchic wine-krater vase of prized Egyptian porphyry is richly sculpted with Ionic-scrolled handles raised on festive masks of the satyr Pan; while an Apollo mask issues from an acanthus-scrolled ribbon wreathing the egg-shaped body. The voluted-handle vase, with its pan reed-gadroons, relates in part to the antique-inspired Bacchus vase or Vaso di Gaeta manufactured in the later 18th century by Giacomo Zoffoli (d.1785) and his brother Giovanni Zoffoli (d.1805) (N. Goodison, Matthew Boulton: Ormolu, London, 200, p.119); while its handles relate to those of Antique vase patterns after designs by the Rome-trained artist Joseph-Marie Vien (d.1809) issued in Paris in 1760 as a Suite de Vases dans le Goût de l'Antique by Marie-Therèse Reboul Vien (d.1805). With its masked ribbon and reeded shoulders it also relates to one of a set of vase patterns published in Rome in 1746 by Jacques Saly (d.1776) (T. Clifford, 'Some English Ceramic Vases and their Sources', pt. I, English Ceramic Circle Transactions, 1977, pp.159-173 and pls.83, 82 and 80 (a)).
PORPHYRY
Porphyry has been prized since antiquity for its lustrous colour (the word derives from the Greek for purple) and remarkable hardness. Only mined at Mons Porphyrius in Egypt, the existence of porphyry in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries was only possible through the resourceful and economical re-use of this most valued of hardstones - most often from ancient classical columns. The Romans imported porphyry in great quantities from ancient Egypt, using it both in architectural schemes and to carve portrait busts. Its rich purple colour, the Imperial symbol of power, was no doubt of special significance in ancient Rome. With the rediscovery of classical Rome in the Renaissance period, the potent symbolism of porphyry was prized once again, and it was avidly collected by powerful figures such as the Medicis, Louis XIV (who had a buying agent in Rome for his acquisitions), and the cardinals de Richelieu and Mazarin.
The taste for exotic stones was again revived in the late Louis XV and Louis XVI period, when the duc d'Aumont, a noted connoisseur-collector, established a workshop at the hôtel des Menus-Plaisirs to cut and polish precious marbles and hard-stones, under the direction of the architect François-Joseph Bélanger and the Italian stone-cutter Augustin Bocciardi.
Although no direct prototype for the design of this vase has been traced, the Apollo mask frieze flanked by scrolling rinceaux foliage recalls the ormolu mounts of a pair of granite columns which had been commissioned by Randon de Boisset and were sold in his sale in 1777, lot 447. Subsequently recorded in the hôtel de Nesle in 1783, these columns are now in the musée du Louvre. By comparison, this would stylistically date the Wildenstein vase to the 1760-70s.
This stylistic dating is also consistent with the larger pair of porphyry vases - displaying a similar treatment of the socle and horizontal bands above a gadrooned base - which were seized from the château de Louveciennes at the Revolution. Possibly those acquired by Mme. du Barry from the duc de Cossé in 1772, who would have bought them in Rome, they are discussed in P. Malgouyres, Porphyre, Paris, 2004, no. 64.
Certainly, the taste for porphyry with neo-Classical motifs could not have been more fashionable than in the 1760s; a rare documented example with striking bearded masks in ormolu mounts by the goldsmith Robert-Joseph Auguste is that sold from the collection of the celebrated connoisseur Blondel de Gagny in 1766 and now in the Wallace Collection, London (P. Hughes, The Wallace Collection Catalogue of Furniture, London, 1996, cat. 283, pp. 1378-80). Another pair of Louis XV porphyry vases with satyr masks was sold from the collection of Hubert de Givenchy, Christie's Monaco, 4 December 1993, lot 18 (Ffr. 2,997,000, £340,034).
This magnificent bacchic wine-krater vase of prized Egyptian porphyry is richly sculpted with Ionic-scrolled handles raised on festive masks of the satyr Pan; while an Apollo mask issues from an acanthus-scrolled ribbon wreathing the egg-shaped body. The voluted-handle vase, with its pan reed-gadroons, relates in part to the antique-inspired Bacchus vase or Vaso di Gaeta manufactured in the later 18th century by Giacomo Zoffoli (d.1785) and his brother Giovanni Zoffoli (d.1805) (N. Goodison, Matthew Boulton: Ormolu, London, 200, p.119); while its handles relate to those of Antique vase patterns after designs by the Rome-trained artist Joseph-Marie Vien (d.1809) issued in Paris in 1760 as a Suite de Vases dans le Goût de l'Antique by Marie-Therèse Reboul Vien (d.1805). With its masked ribbon and reeded shoulders it also relates to one of a set of vase patterns published in Rome in 1746 by Jacques Saly (d.1776) (T. Clifford, 'Some English Ceramic Vases and their Sources', pt. I, English Ceramic Circle Transactions, 1977, pp.159-173 and pls.83, 82 and 80 (a)).
PORPHYRY
Porphyry has been prized since antiquity for its lustrous colour (the word derives from the Greek for purple) and remarkable hardness. Only mined at Mons Porphyrius in Egypt, the existence of porphyry in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries was only possible through the resourceful and economical re-use of this most valued of hardstones - most often from ancient classical columns. The Romans imported porphyry in great quantities from ancient Egypt, using it both in architectural schemes and to carve portrait busts. Its rich purple colour, the Imperial symbol of power, was no doubt of special significance in ancient Rome. With the rediscovery of classical Rome in the Renaissance period, the potent symbolism of porphyry was prized once again, and it was avidly collected by powerful figures such as the Medicis, Louis XIV (who had a buying agent in Rome for his acquisitions), and the cardinals de Richelieu and Mazarin.
The taste for exotic stones was again revived in the late Louis XV and Louis XVI period, when the duc d'Aumont, a noted connoisseur-collector, established a workshop at the hôtel des Menus-Plaisirs to cut and polish precious marbles and hard-stones, under the direction of the architect François-Joseph Bélanger and the Italian stone-cutter Augustin Bocciardi.
Although no direct prototype for the design of this vase has been traced, the Apollo mask frieze flanked by scrolling rinceaux foliage recalls the ormolu mounts of a pair of granite columns which had been commissioned by Randon de Boisset and were sold in his sale in 1777, lot 447. Subsequently recorded in the hôtel de Nesle in 1783, these columns are now in the musée du Louvre. By comparison, this would stylistically date the Wildenstein vase to the 1760-70s.
This stylistic dating is also consistent with the larger pair of porphyry vases - displaying a similar treatment of the socle and horizontal bands above a gadrooned base - which were seized from the château de Louveciennes at the Revolution. Possibly those acquired by Mme. du Barry from the duc de Cossé in 1772, who would have bought them in Rome, they are discussed in P. Malgouyres, Porphyre, Paris, 2004, no. 64.
Certainly, the taste for porphyry with neo-Classical motifs could not have been more fashionable than in the 1760s; a rare documented example with striking bearded masks in ormolu mounts by the goldsmith Robert-Joseph Auguste is that sold from the collection of the celebrated connoisseur Blondel de Gagny in 1766 and now in the Wallace Collection, London (P. Hughes, The Wallace Collection Catalogue of Furniture, London, 1996, cat. 283, pp. 1378-80). Another pair of Louis XV porphyry vases with satyr masks was sold from the collection of Hubert de Givenchy, Christie's Monaco, 4 December 1993, lot 18 (Ffr. 2,997,000, £340,034).