A GEORGE III ORMOLU AND WHITE MARBLE VASE PERFUME BURNER

The vase is a variation on Matthew Boulton's Venus vase, which was manufactured as both a perfume burner and a clock case. Boulton's pattern book shows a more elaborate model, with a standing figure of Venus resting against the plinth, the original source of which may have been the engraving attributed to Simon François Ravenet depicting Venus mourning for Adonis, published by Robert Sayer in The Compleat Drawing Book (3rd ed. 1762). In Boulton's fully realised version of the perfume vase, the pair of doves are positioned on the lower step of the plinth whereas here, in the absence of the female figure, they are repositioned on the plinth itself, directly below the urn (see N. Goodison, Matthew Boulton: Ormolu, London, 2002, p. 96, fig. 65, and pp. 351 - 356, figs. 359 - 361).
Although no exactly comparable vase has been identified there are other examples that appear incomplete, or the design incoherent, and Nicholas Goodison has suggested that these may have been assembled from elements left over in the factory after production to all intents an purposes ceased in the 1780s.