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Lot Essay
The celebrated ceramic artist Marc Louis Solon left the Sèvres manufactory and came to England in late 1870, following the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War. The Minton factory had, under the directorship of Léon Arnoux, acquired a reputation for attracting the most skilled craftsmen from leading porcelain factories on the Continent. Solon enjoyed a long and successful association at Minton, producing some of the manufactory's most celebrated pieces, including numerous works displayed at the great expositions of the late 19th century. As U.S. Commissioner Blake observed in his Reports of the United States Commissioners to the House of Representatives following the 1878 Paris Exposition Universelle, Solon's "work is incomparably superior to that of any of his imitators, far surpassing in art value the best examples of figure subjects from the kilns of Sèvres. He alone fully and satisfactorily unites skill in the technique of paste and glaze and the genius of sculptor and designer. His favourite subjects, as is well known, are the female form, Cupids and cherubs. He delights in illustrating the pranks Cupid plays with the hearts of maidens." For an exhaustive discussion of Solon's work at Minton, see Bernard Bumpus, Pâte-sur-Pâte, London, 1992, pp. 100-151.
Louis Solon's Illustrated Journal records a design entry for this distinctive ceramic form and the figures on the right-hand vase, entitled 'Mendiant' ('Beggar'). The artist spent a total of 22 days between May 11th and June 11th of 1875 working on the vases, an extraordinarily long time in comparison to most of his pieces which only took a few days each.
See Joan Jones, Minton: The First Two Hundred Years of Design and Production, Shrewsbury, 1993, p. 192 and 193 for a similar pair of polychrome vases decorated in the Pompeiian style either also, or incorrectly, entitled "The Thief" and "The Beggar", the same titles as the present pair.
Louis Solon's Illustrated Journal records a design entry for this distinctive ceramic form and the figures on the right-hand vase, entitled 'Mendiant' ('Beggar'). The artist spent a total of 22 days between May 11th and June 11th of 1875 working on the vases, an extraordinarily long time in comparison to most of his pieces which only took a few days each.
See Joan Jones, Minton: The First Two Hundred Years of Design and Production, Shrewsbury, 1993, p. 192 and 193 for a similar pair of polychrome vases decorated in the Pompeiian style either also, or incorrectly, entitled "The Thief" and "The Beggar", the same titles as the present pair.