CIRCA 1765-1770

细节

A LATE LOUIS XV ORMOLU AND CUT COBALT BLUE GLASS GARNITURE
CIRCA 1765-1770
Comprising a pair of vases and a covered vase, the pair with everted lobed and fluted lip above the faceted flattened drop-shaped body hung with fruiting laurel, on a foliate-capped base with oval laurel-rimmed foot on a canted and panelled rectangular plinth; the lidded vase with a berry finial above the fluted domed lid and the guilloche band with faceted body hung with fruiting garlands, on a foliate cap and laurel-rimmed foot on a canted and panelled square plinth, the underside of the plinths of the pair of vases each with four unexplained screw-holes, some elements regilt, minor variations in chasing and construction between the pair of vases and the covered vase
The pair 14 in. (36 cm.) high, the lidded vase 13 in. (33 cm.) high (3)

来源

with Maurice Segoura, Paris.

拍品专文

This superb garniture with bodies of complex faceted cobalt blue or 'bleu royal' glass offset by sober 'à l'antique' mounts, reflects the passion for the 'à la grecque' style which swept Paris in the 1760s. This new taste for sober classical forms, a reaction to the heated naturalism of the rococo period, was promoted by avant garde collectors such as Ange-Laurent Lalive de Jully, the Marquis de Marigny and the Comte de Caylus, and propagated by architects and designers such as Jean-François de Neufforge, Victor Louis and Jean-Louis Prieur.

Every element of the ornamentation of this garniture reflects this new classical sensibility - the laurel swags, the fluted collars of the two smaller vases, the Roman acanthus and oak leaves of the socles and their simple, almost unadorned pedestal bases. Such ormamentation was also seen on mounted Sèvres porcelain pieces, as promoted by influential marchand-merciers such as Simon-Philippe Poirier, for instance on a pair of vases at Waddesdon Manor (illustrated in S. Eriksen, Early Neo-Classicism in France, London, 1974, fig. 238).
The exceptional scale of the cobalt blue glass vases has few precedents, but is approached by a single vase with Russian ormolu base illustrated in P. Kjellberg, Objets Montés du Moyen Age à Nos Jours, Paris, 2000, p. 147, later sold Christie's London, 10 June 2004, lot 85, and on a pair of Russian girandoles illustrated in A. Chouvalov and A. Kugel, Trésors des Tsars, exhibition catalogue, Paris, 1998, cat. 290.