A PAIR OF LOUIS XVI ORMOLU-MOUNTED CHINESE POWDER-BLUE BALUSTER VASES AND COVERS

These vases are perfect expressions of the taste for objets montés in the late 1760s and early 1770s. In their monumental and architectural form, they recall the garniture of vases from the Riahi Collection, sold Christie's New York, 2 November 2000, lot 25. These latter vases are recorded in the inventory of the comte de Lamarck at the hôtel Charost as early in 1773, when they were placed in the same year, on the chimney piece in the comtesse's bedroom: 'Une garniture cheminée composie d'un pot à oeil et quatre vases de differentes formes le tout en porcelaine montíe garnie en bronze doré d'or moulu'.
In their trumpet form, with domed lid and berried finial, their monumental friezes and socles with ribbon-tied laurel, the present and the Riahi vases share much in common. They were therefore quite probably executed by the same bronzier. Much of the same characteristics are shared with a further pair of Chinese porcelain vases cornets in the Frick Collection, New York, see T. Dell, Furniture in the Frick Collection, Princeton, 1992, pp.315-320. Dell, op.cit., has associated the Frick vases with the Godilles, a celebrated family of Parisian fondeurs. Five members of this dynasty were fondeurs in the eighteenth century: Jean, his two sons Gabriel and André and his grandsons Louis-Gabriel and Jean-Nicolas. A second garniture, close both in ornament and composition to the Riahi example, which remains untraced to this day, is recorded in eighteenth-century documentation. In 1795, 'une garniture de cheminée composée de cinq pièces en porcelaine de la chine gros bleu; celle du milieu d'une forme oblongue ornée d'enfants, les autres d'ornements de bronze doré d'or moulu, la pièce du milieu garnie d'une pendule de Buzot' was siezed from President de Nicolaÿ; subsequently returned, it was eventually sold by his heirs. Sadly, the description is too vague to allow any categoric identification unless it remains intact. The distinctive ram's mask mounts on this vase are directly inspired by the oeuvre of André-Charles Boulle, which struck such a chord with the amateurs of the 1770s. Foremost amongst them was Randon de Boisset, who owned Boulle guéridons with tête de béliers of this basic model, sold from the Riahi Collection, Christie's New York, 2 November 2000, lot 37.