AN IMPORTANT PAIR OF FRENCH SILVER DISH-COVERS

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Image Caption: Jean-Baptiste-Claude Odiot, 1822 Robert Jacques Francois Lefevre Founders Society Purchase, Robert H. Tannahill Foundation Fund Photograph © 1990 The Detroit Institute of Arts Jean-Baptiste-Claude Odiot (1763-1850) While the Maison Odiot can trace its origins back to 1690, it was not until Jean-Baptiste-Claude Odiot, the grandson of the founder Jean-Baptiste-Gaspard Odiot that the firm came to prominence. Born in 1763 and becoming a master in 1785, Odiot succeeded his father in the business, steadily building the firm's reputation, coming to a particular notice following the Exposition de l'industrie held in Paris in 1802. Following the bankruptcy, in 1809, of the celebrated neoclassical silversmith Henry Auguste, who at the time was the silversmith to Emperor Napoleon, Odiot was able to purchase many of his models and designs. Odiot, along with Martin-Guillaume Biennais, soon replaced Auguste as the Napoleon's silversmiths ensuring the success of both firms. Soon Odiot was receiving orders from the French court, including a service made for Napoleon's mother, styled 'Madame Mère', (Christie's London, 19 October 2005, lot 134) and as well as from all over Europe and beyond. The Russian's Imperial court's love affair with French silver, most famously realised in the service made for Catherine the Great from the Parisian silversmith Jacques Roettiers and his son Jacques-Nicolas Roettiers in 1770 and subsequently presented to her lover Count Gregory Orloff (Christie's New York, 19 April 2002, lot 74) continued with commissions from the Russian court to Odiot. Among these important commissions were a massive service for Countess Branicki, (Christie's London, 12 June 2007, lots 120-122 and lot 120 in the present sale which are marked by Francois-Dominique Naudin as is often the case with the flatware from these large services) and Count Nikolai Demidoff (Christie's London 5 July 2000, lots 2-3). Odiot's work during this period is characterised by strong neoclassical forms, ornamented with cast figural elements, attached not by the traditional soldering but with the use of bolts and rivets, a method he inherited from his collaboration with the bronzier Pierre-Philippe Thomire (1751-1843). Having survived the French Empire as well as the Bourbon monarchy, Jean-Baptiste-Claude Odiot retired in 1823 passing the business to his son Charles-Nicolas. THE PROPERTY OF A EUROPEAN COLLECTOR (Lots 112-148)

AN IMPORTANT PAIR OF FRENCH SILVER DISH-COVERS

MARK OF JEAN-BAPTISTE-CLAUDE ODIOT, PARIS, 1798-1809

Details

AN IMPORTANT PAIR OF FRENCH SILVER DISH-COVERS
MARK OF JEAN-BAPTISTE-CLAUDE ODIOT, PARIS, 1798-1809
Each domed circular, with a cast frieze of fruiting grapevines on a textured ground, the detachable spool shaped handle with a band of ribbon-tied floral garlands and a Bacchic mask, later engraved inside with initials, each marked underneath and near rim, the inside painted with inventory number 'D.W 2631-8'
10½ in. (26.5 cm.) diam.
94 oz. (2,595 gr.) (2)

Provenance

D. David-Weill; Ader Picard Tajan, Hotel Drouot, Paris, 4 and 5 May 1972, lot 61

Literature

F. Dennis, Three Centuries of French Domestic Silver, New York, 1968, no. 264

Exhibited

Paris, Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Ofréverie civile française de la Rèvolution á nos jours, 1929, no. 81
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Three Centuries of French Domestic Silver, 1938, no. 264

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 15% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.

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