• A Taste for Luxury: Two Great  auction at Christies

    Sale 2645

    A Taste for Luxury: Two Great Houses from America's Gilded Age

    New York

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    21 June 2012

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    • A FINE PAIR OF GEORGE IV SILVE
    Lot 1108

    A FINE PAIR OF GEORGE IV SILVER-GILT WINE COOLERS

    MARK OF PAUL STORR, LONDON, 1827

    Price realised

    USD 152,500

    Estimate

    USD 100,000 - USD 150,000

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    A FINE PAIR OF GEORGE IV SILVER-GILT WINE COOLERS
    MARK OF PAUL STORR, LONDON, 1827
    Each modeled as a volute krater, on a square base, with an applied frieze, one depicting Bacchus and Ariadne with dancing bacchantes and attendants, above satyr masks and vines, the other with Ceres in a serpent-drawn chariot with attendants bearing fruits of the harvest, above horned and bearded masks with wheat swags, each on a finely matted ground, the handles chased with laurel and paterae, below swans' heads, egg-and-dart and beaded rims, with detachable rims and liners, the base engraved Published as the Act directs by Storr & Mortimer 156 New Bond Street London, numbered 4 and 5 respectively, each marked on body, collar, and liner
    12 5/8 in. (32.1 cm.) high; 243 oz. (7,557 gr.) (2)

    Provenance

    The Estate of Nelson A. Rockefeller, sold
    Sotheby's, New York, 16 April 2005, lot 240

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    Lot Essay

    The Triumph of Bacchus frieze on this pair of wine coolers is derived from a late 2nd-century Roman sarcophagus in the Vatican Museum, engravings of which were published by E. Q. Visconti in Museo Pio-Clementio, between 1782 and 1802 (see D. Udy, "Piranesi's 'Vasi,' the English Silversmith and his Patrons," Burlington Magazine, December 1978, pp. 828-29).

    Looking to antiquity for inspiration, designers including John Flaxman used engravings of Roman archaeological discoveries published by Piranesi, Visconti and others. It is known, for example, that the Storr workshop owned a number of Piranesi's engravings, and it seems almost certain that the workshop, or the firm's retailer Rundell's, also had copies of Visconti's work.

    Other wine coolers in this style include a pair in white silver in the Jerome and Rita Gans Collection at the Virginia Museum of Fine Art, and a single example at the Victoria and Albert Museum (see Joseph Bliss, The Gerome and Rita Gans Collection of English Silver on Loan to The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, n.d., pp. 188-190)

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