A NEAR PAIR OF REGENCE ORMOLU-MOUNTED CHINESE POWDER-BLUE PORCELAIN CACHE POTS

Combining Chinese porcelain with mounts in the form of exotic and fantastical dragons, this pair of cache pots is an excellent example of the fascination with East Asian art and its adaptation for the European market by the marchands-merciers of Paris during the first half of the eighteenth century. While the ormolu rims and the scrolls of the handles are typical of the ornamental grammar of the Régence period, the dragons are rarer and indicate perhaps a transition in taste to the more whimsical and fanciful forms that would define the rococo period. The handles derive from designs of the Louis XIV period in the Bérainesque style by draughtsmen such as Jacques De Meaux.

The mounting of expensive and precious Chinese and Japanese objects dated to the middle ages but the early eighteenth century saw an intensification of diplomatic relations between the court of Louis XIV and Imperial China which resulted in renewed interest in and augmented supply of Chinese porcelain. The marchands-merciers turned to the bronziers and artisans of Paris to enrich the porcelain imported from China with ormolu mounts, thereby fueling the development of a luxury market. Later in the reign of Louis XV marchands-merciers would become famous for providing ormolu-mounted Chinese celadon and lacquer objects to elite and discerning patrons, including Madame de Pompadour.

For porcelain mounted with similar rims and dragon handles from the Régence and early Louis XV periods, see a pair of Chinese vases and covers struck with the 'C' couronné poinçon sold Sotheby’s, New York, 18 November 2010, lot 202; an ewer dating to circa 1730 mounted with a single handle surmounted by a dragon and formerly in the collection of Louis XVI and the duc d’Aumont, now in the Louvre (inv. 406); a Meissen example illustrated Giacomo Wannenes, Les Bronzes Ornementaux et les Objets Montés, Milan, 2004, p. 92.; and a pair of bowls in the Wrightsman collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, see Carl Christian Dauterman, The Wrightsman Collection, Vol. IV, Greenwich, 1970, no. 45A and B, pp. 96-97. A related pair of vases using similar Chinese underglaze-blue porcelain but with addorsed mermaid handles was formerly in the collection of Florence Gould, sold Sotheby’s, Monaco, 25-26 June 1984, lot 726 and were subsequently in the Keck Collection, La Lanterne, Bel Air, sold Sotheby's, New York, 5 December 1991, lot 10.