Pair of Chinese powder blue porcelain covered vases

A pair of late Louis XV gilt bronze-mounted Chinese powder
blue porcelain baluster vases and covers – circa 1770
 

The porcelain Qianlong Period (1736-1795)

 

Height: 45 cm. (17 ¾ in.)     Width: 26 cm. (10 ¼ in.)     Depth: 23 cm. (9 in.) 

Width and Depth of base: 13.5 cm. (5 ¼ in.)  

 

 

Provenance

Bardac Collection, 1923

Wildenstein Collection, sold Christie’s London, 14 December 2005, lot 54

 

Comparative Literature

T.Dell, D. Dubon and J. Focarino, The Frick Collection: an illustrated catalogue. Vol. 5, Furniture: Italian & French, New York, 1992, pp. 315-320.

F.M. Ricci, Quelques chefs-d’œuvre de La Collection Djahanguir Riahi, Paris, 2000, pp. 205-209. 

A garniture of Chinese powder blue porcelain vases sharing the same monumental and architectural form (illustrated in Ricci, op. cit., pp. 205-209) are recorded in 1773 in the possession of the comte de Lamarck at the hôtel Charost in Paris (now the British Embassy) and were sold from the Riahi Collection, Christie’s New York, 2 November 2000, lot 25. Their trumpet form, with domed lid and berried finial, monumental friezes and socles with ribbon-tied laurel are all near identical to this pair and they were therefore quite probably executed by the same bronzier.

Several characteristics are shared with a further pair of Chinese powder blue porcelain cornet vases in the Frick Collection, New York illustrated in Dell et al., op. cit., pp. 315-320. Dell associates 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