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Lot Essay
This magnificent vase is a masterpiece of the skillful art of mounted porcelain, perfected by marchands-merciers such as Lazare Duvaux in the 1740s and 1750s. It unites a precious dark blue Chinese porcelain vase with superbly cast and chased gilt-bronzes attributed to the chief designer and sculpteur at Sèvres Jean-Claude Chambellan Duplessis.
Demonstrating many of the recognisable characteristics of Duplessis' style, such as the homogenous unity of form and bold decoration, suggesting that the mounts were made specifically for this vase, and the substantial and symmetrical acanthus scroll mounts of the highest quality, illustrate the superb modelling and chasing for which Duplessis is renowned. Comparable vases attributed to Duplessis, with closely related bases and scrolling handles, but incorporating celadon porcelain bodies, are now at the Musée Nissim de Camondo, and at Waddesdon Manor (illustrated in G. de Bellaigue, Furniture, Clocks and Gilt Bronzes, vol. II, 1974, p. 764). The mounts featured on these vases are particularly reminiscent of the designs Duplessis realised for soft and hard paste Sèvres porcelain during the period 1748 to 1774, when Duplessis was artistic director at Vincennes and its successor, Sèvres. A drawing of this design survives in the Sèvres archive (L.H. Roth, C. Le Corbeiller, French Eighteenth-Century Porcelain at the Wadsworth Atheneum, p. 105, fig. 59-1). Examples of these Sèvres porcelain vases are at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (24.214.5) and the Victoria & Albert Museum, London (C.357-1909).
JEAN-CLAUDE DUPLESSIS
Jean-Claude Chambellan Duplessis, père (d. 1774), Turinese by birth, sculptor, designer and fondeur-ciseleur, is known chiefly for his work as a modeller at the Sèvres factory, including a design named after him - Vase Duplessis - with distinctive overscrolled handles such as those on the present vase. Documented bronzes by him are extremely rare: among the best known examples are the mounts for the Bureau du Roi of Louis XV and a mounted Sèvres vase of flowers on shaped base given by the Dauphine Marie-Josèphe to her father Augustus III, King of Saxony in 1749 (Serge Gauthier, Les Porcelainiers du XVIIIe Siècle Français, 1964, p. 169).
Demonstrating many of the recognisable characteristics of Duplessis' style, such as the homogenous unity of form and bold decoration, suggesting that the mounts were made specifically for this vase, and the substantial and symmetrical acanthus scroll mounts of the highest quality, illustrate the superb modelling and chasing for which Duplessis is renowned. Comparable vases attributed to Duplessis, with closely related bases and scrolling handles, but incorporating celadon porcelain bodies, are now at the Musée Nissim de Camondo, and at Waddesdon Manor (illustrated in G. de Bellaigue, Furniture, Clocks and Gilt Bronzes, vol. II, 1974, p. 764). The mounts featured on these vases are particularly reminiscent of the designs Duplessis realised for soft and hard paste Sèvres porcelain during the period 1748 to 1774, when Duplessis was artistic director at Vincennes and its successor, Sèvres. A drawing of this design survives in the Sèvres archive (L.H. Roth, C. Le Corbeiller, French Eighteenth-Century Porcelain at the Wadsworth Atheneum, p. 105, fig. 59-1). Examples of these Sèvres porcelain vases are at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (24.214.5) and the Victoria & Albert Museum, London (C.357-1909).
JEAN-CLAUDE DUPLESSIS
Jean-Claude Chambellan Duplessis, père (d. 1774), Turinese by birth, sculptor, designer and fondeur-ciseleur, is known chiefly for his work as a modeller at the Sèvres factory, including a design named after him - Vase Duplessis - with distinctive overscrolled handles such as those on the present vase. Documented bronzes by him are extremely rare: among the best known examples are the mounts for the Bureau du Roi of Louis XV and a mounted Sèvres vase of flowers on shaped base given by the Dauphine Marie-Josèphe to her father Augustus III, King of Saxony in 1749 (Serge Gauthier, Les Porcelainiers du XVIIIe Siècle Français, 1964, p. 169).