A FINE AND RARE FRENCH SILVER EWER IN THE ISLAMIC TASTE

This unusual vessel is after a design furnished by Paul Legrand for Boucheron, and similar to one sold by the firm in 1880 to the Grand Duke Vladimir of Russia. The form was employed in France as early as 1845 by Jules Peyre, sometime director of design at the Sèvres porcelain manufactory, in his book of lithographic plates, Orfèvrerie bijouterie. See David Allan, Orfèvrerie Française orientaliste du 19eme siècle, 2003 for a ewer and two tea services by Boucheron, circa 1880, with similar pierced foliate motifs, pp. 21-22, 36.