THE MOUNTS THIRD QUARTER 19TH CENTURY, THE SEVRES DATED 1871, THE BLUE GROUND POSSIBLY ADDED OUTSIDE THE FACTORY

These exquisite vases, with their bold 'à la Grec' mounts, are based on the celebrated model of vases created by Jean Dulac in the 1760s. Styling himself as 'Dulac marchand gantier-parfumeur et bijoutier rue Saint Honoré près de l'Oratoire à la tête d'or', Jean Dulac (d. 1786) proclaimed in his advertisement that he could provide ‘garniture de cheminées, vases montées en omolou’. This innovative model is one of the earliest types of Sèvres vases à monter and, judging from the number of surviving examples in both the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the most enduringly successful. A parfumeur by profession, Dulac appears consistently in the sales register at Sèvres from 1758-1776. He acquired the majority of the production of this model, known as vases-cloches, purchasing a total of twenty between 1772 and 1779. Commonly incorporating the amusing device of concealed candle branches to the underside of the lids, Dulac's eighteenth-century originals were popular among the sophisticated collectors of the day, with examples acquired by Madame du Barry, Horace Walpole and Prince Baryatinski for Grand Duke Paul's apartments at Pavlovsk.