AN ORMOLU-MOUNTED SEVRES STYLE PORCELAIN COBALT-BLUE GROUND 'MEDICIS' VASE

19TH CENTURY, THE MOUNTS BASED ON DESIGNS BY PIERRE-PHILIPPE THOMIRE

Details

AN ORMOLU-MOUNTED SEVRES STYLE PORCELAIN COBALT-BLUE GROUND 'MEDICIS' VASE
19TH CENTURY, THE MOUNTS BASED ON DESIGNS BY PIERRE-PHILIPPE THOMIRE
Modeled after the Sèvres Vase de Minerva, the everted lip fitted with a gadrooned rim, the neck and shoulder cast with rouletted, beaded and pierced anthemion bands, flanked by paired female warrior handles, the shoulder with a beaded band above entwined spades and pendant berries, the brace cast with vases and shields centering lion, Apollo and gaping masks, on a conforming socle and shaped square base
25¾ in. (65.4 cm.) high

Provenance

Anonymous sale; Christie's, New York, 29 October 2002, lot 266.

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Lot Essay

The original Vase de Minerva and its pendant Vase de Mars entered the Royal Registry at the end of December 1787 at the enormous price of 12.000 livres for the pair. They were to be placed in the Cabinet du Conseil at Versailles to accompany the blue brocade furniture designed for Louis XVI. The Vase de Mars and its cover is currently exhibited on the mantelpiece of the Cabinet de l'Abdication at Fountainbleau, while the Minerva cover was discovered by Carle Dreyfus to rest atop a clock in the Louvre (no. 375 in the catalogue du Mobiler). The original model for the present example has been lost. Thus the present lot is of clear historic importance as it closely relates to the non-extant original. (See P. Verlet, Sèvres, Le XVIII Sièle, Paris, 1953, pl. 89.)

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