The Property of JOHN VILLIERS, Esq.
A PAIR OF GEORGE III ORMOLU AND BLUEJOHN GRIFFIN PERFUME-BURNERS

细节
A PAIR OF GEORGE III ORMOLU AND BLUEJOHN GRIFFIN PERFUME-BURNERS
BY MATTHEW BOULTON

Each with central urn and domed circular cover applied with downswept acanthus leaves and a later circular knop finial above a pierced and swagged body headed by tripartite rams' heads and flowering trailed supports, the waisted circular socle surmounted by upturned stylised acanthus wrap on a gadrooned and fluted column shaft resting on an inverted domed foliate support and knob finial above three seated and laurel collared griffins, the solid bluejohn circular plinth between a milled circular platform and stiff-leaf banded spreading base, one acanthus leaf missing on one lid
6¼in. (16cm.) diam.; 10¾in. (27.5cm.) high (2)
来源
By descent from Captain E.H. Villiers, D.S.O.

拍品专文

These 'Griffin' vase perfume-burners are of a model of which eight pairs were included in Boulton's first sale at Christie's in 1771. Although no actual design survives they correspond to the description in the catalogue and others survive. (N. Goodison, Ormolu: The Work of Matthew Boulton, London, 1974, pp. 157-158 and pl. 90)
The tripods comprise sunflower-tazze supported by confronted griffin that are sacred to Apollo and associated with fire. While recalling the celebrated marble antiquity in the Capitoline Museum, the laurel-festooned griffin model relates to a candlestick which may have been one of the 'modells' lent to Boulton in 1770 by the architect William Chambers and which later featured in his Treatise on Civil Architecture, 3rd. ed., 1791.
This pattern of Boulton tripod pedestal also featured with three porcelain vases, sold anonymously, in these Rooms, 10 April 1986, lot 1