A PAIR OF REGENCE ORMOLU-MOUNTED CHINESE WUCAI PORCELAIN CACHE-POTS

These cache-pots are set in Bérainesque strapwork mounts of circa 1715-1725, and relate to the latter oeuvre of André-Charles Boulle (1642-1732), in particular to a design for wall-lights of 1724, and to the backplate of a three-branch wall-light in the Louvre (ill. H. Ottomeyer/P. Pröschel et. al., Vergoldete Bronzen, Munich, 1986, vol. I., p. 61, fig. 1.9.4 and 1.9.5). They also relate to the silver mounts of a Japanese Imari lidded bowl in the Toledo Museum of Art, which are struck with the Paris discharge mark for 1717-1722 (F.J.B. Watson, Mounted Oriental Porcelain, Exhibition Catalogue, Washington, 1986, p. 56-57, no. 14).

The mounting of oriental porcelain first developed in the Middle Ages but reached its zenith in the mid-18th Century, when Parisian marchands-merciers such as Lazare Duvaux and Thomas-Joachim Hébert, catered to the inexhaustible demand for mounted porcelains among fashionable amateurs. The vogue for mounted porcelain is reflected in a discussion on the collection of Blondel de Gagny by Dezaillier d'Argenville, in his Voyage Pittoresque de Paris of 1752:
'La peinture ne fait pas le seul ornament du cabinet de M. Blondel de Gagny, on y voit avec plaisir une très grand quantité de porcelaines anciennes les plus parfaites, dont les montures semblent disputer le prix avec les pièces qu'elles accompagnent'.