CIRCA 1770

This superb Breccia Africano vase with neoclassical ormolu mounts could be identified as one of the two vases listed in the posthumous sale of the celebrated collector Augustin Blondel de Gagny (1695-1776), which took place in Paris on 10 December 1776:
419 - Deux beaux vases de marbre africain, garnis chacun d’un bandeau & de deux anneaux, d’une pomme de pin & feuilles sur le couvercle, & d’un pied, le tout de bronze doré, sur des socles de même marbre avec encadrements, aussi de bronze doré : hauteur totale 20 pouces [54 cm.].

This vase, together with its pair, was placed on an additional base in marble (now lost) as were most of the other vases in his collection, including vases in porcelain. This vase and its pair were almost certainly those listed in the collector’s inventory dated 1776 in the antichambre of his hôtel particulier in the place Vendôme (now the hôtel Ritz), placed on a Boulle meuble d’appui flanked by three bronzes of Ariane et Bacchus, L’Éducation de l’Amour and Mercure et Vénus, a visual ensemble of incredible richness.

Augustin Blondel de Gagny was a French connoisseur and a major collector whose series of Paris auction sales, which took place soon after his death, were high-water marks of the history of collecting in 18th-century France. He was born in Lyon in 1695 and was the son of the commissaire général de la Marine. In 1723, Blondel had already bought a house in Paris in the financial district and a country house in Garges. He began collecting around 1737, buying paintings at the sale of the Comtesse de Verrue, then in 1742 at the sale of the Prince de Carignan. In 1750, he was promoted to director of the caisse d'amortissement, then Intendant des Menus Plaisirs du Roi. Until his death in July 1776, he continually enriched his collection. The legendary sale of this collection, which began on 10 December 1777, included 400 paintings as well as marbles, vases, furniture, clocks, chandeliers and numerous mounted porcelains. Among these treasures there was an important group of ormolu-mounted neoclassical hardstone objects, including a pair of vases in levanto rosso or vert d’Egypte mounted by François-Nicolas Vassou, sold at Christie’s, London, 20 April 2007, lot 170.