A pair of goût arabesque agate dishes

A pair of Louis XVI gilt bronze-mounted agate dishes – circa 1785

Height: 13.8 cm. (5 ½ in.) Width: 11 cm. (4 ¼ in.) Depth: 9 cm. (3 ½ in.)
Width of dishes: 11.5 cm. (4 ½ in.) Depth of dishes: 7.5 cm. (3 in.)

Each oval agate dish richly mounted in gilt bronze in the goût arabesque style with a border of pearls resting on four incurved legs terminating in gryphon’s heads. The supports enriched with scrolling foliage and end in paw feet resting on a plinth centred by a rosette and four further turned feet.

Comparative Literature

D. Alcouffe, A. Dion-Tenenbaum and G. Mabille, Les bronzes d’ameublement du Louvre, Dijon, 2004, pp. 252-263.

Hardstones such as these precious oriental agate dishes were highly prized by aristocratic and royal collectors alike, notably Marie-Antoinette
During the reigns of Louis XV and Louis XVI, Parisian marchands-merciers played a decisive role in the creation of luxurious mounted objects. With the addition of finely chased gilt bronze, they sought to enhance the most beautiful materials: rock crystal, petrified wood, jasper, carnelian, sardonyx, agate, and others.

In the Encyclopédie, Diderot and d’Alembert devote an article to agate. It is “a semi-transparent fine stone”, whose colour palette varies from milky white mixed with yellow to brown, and depending on its transparency falls into two categories: oriental agate (with a cleaner polish and great translucency), and western agate which is darker and sometimes of lower quality. Depending on the application of the spots and colours, one also finds onyx, eyed, herborized agates, etc.

The most important collectors all turned to agate pieces decorated with gilt bronze. Among them were the King’s jeweller, Ange Joseph Aubert, who at the time of his death owned “a charming oriental agate cup… of oval shape; richly decorated with four arabesque-style consoles, which end at the top with as many eagles’ heads, which seem to support the cup in their beaks”1 In the goût arabesque style, the setting of Aubert’s cup is very close to this pair. Others belonged to the dealer, Le Brun, the financier, Randon de Boisset, and Queen Marie-Antoinette which she kept in her large cabinet called the Cabinet doré at the Palace of Versailles.

1 Sold Paris, A.-J. Paillet expert, 2 March 1786, lot 203.

Marie-Antoinette’s taste for objets d’art and collecting
The Queen mainly collected hard stone vases and oriental objects such as lacquers or porcelain. Anxious to preserve her collection safe from the revolutionary turmoil which followed the royal family’s departure from Versailles for the Tuileries Palace, she entrusted it to the marchand-mercier, Dominique Daguerre, on the rue Saint-Honoré, on 10 October 1789. Daguerre indeed had contributed to the formation of this collection, and the Queen asked him to pack them, have them repaired and provided with cases. After her death on 16 October 1793, the collection was inventoried by the Commission des Arts, at the home of Daguerre’s successor, Martin-Éloi Lignereux, on 16 December 1793. Years later, the majority of the works were eventually allocated to the Louvre (Alcouffe et al., op. cit., pp. 252-263).