A pair of granite vases on columns

A pair of early Louis XVI monumental gilt bronze-mounted pink granite vases on columns – circa 1770-1775

The pink granite vases, placed on pink granite columns, 18th Century

One vase with gilt bronzes early Louis XVI Period, circa 1770 -1775

The other with the laurel garlands early Louis XVI Period, circa 1770 -1775,
the other bronzes replaced in the 19th Century

The gilt bronze laurel torus decorating the black marble socles of the columns, early 19th Century

Total height: 190 cm. (6 ft. 2 ¾ in.) Width of vases: 54 cm. (21 ¼ in.)

Provenance

Galerie J. Kugel, Paris, 2007
Al Thani Collection, Hôtel Lambert, Paris, sold Sotheby’s Paris, 11 October 2022, lot 83

Literature

J.-L. Gaillemin, Antiquaires. The Finest Antique Dealers in Paris, New York, 2000, pp. 86-87.

Comparative Literature

H. Ottomeyer and P. Pröschel, Vergoldete Bronzen: Die Bronzearbeiten des Spätbarock und Klassizimus, Munich, 1986, vol. I, p. 173.
P. Kjellberg, Objets montés du Moyen-Âge à nos jours, Paris, 2000, p. 113.
C. Baulez, ‘Le marquis de Marigny, le comte d’Angiviller et le goût des amateurs de porphyre à Paris au XVIIIe siècle’, in Porphyre, la pierre pourpre des Ptolémées aux Bonaparte, exh. cat., Paris, Musée du Louvre, 2003, pp. 152-162.

Sources of pink granite
The interest in combining gilt bronze mounts and hardstone objects peaked during the Louis XVI Period. Particularly prized were specimens dating from antiquity such as Egyptian porphyry and granite, imported from Italy by prominent collectors and connoisseurs such as the Duc d’Aumont. Aumont headed up the Menus Plaisirs du Roi, the official body responsible for Court ceremonies and festivities which had a major influence on contemporary decorative arts. However, the costs and difficulties incurred procuring antique stone in Italy led the Menus Plaisirs to seek more local sources, and in 1768 suitable veins near Remiremont in the Vosges region of Eastern France were discovered.

The architect, François-Joseph Bélanger, who worked for the Menus Plaisirs and also designed mounts for vases in Aumont’s personal collection, observed in 1774 that domestically exploited porphyry and granite was of the same quality as that of Ancient Rome: ‘…nous avons dans nos provinces une partie des marbres que les Grecs et les Romains allaient chercher dans la Haute-Egypte et que les porphyres et les granits se trouvent chez nous dans l’Alsace […] cette matière est parfaitement de la même nature que celle dont nous avons des fragments d’antiquité’ (we have in our provinces some of the marbles that the Greeks and Romans sought out in Upper Egypt, like the porphyries and granites of Alsace […] this material is exactly the same as the fragments from antiquity) (Baulez, op. cit., p. 160).

By the 1780s, auction catalogues indicate that vases made of French-quarried stone were valued by eminent collectors. The partial sale of the collection of Aumont’s niece, the Duchesse de Mazarin included a large vase ‘de belle forme & d’un beau poli de Granit d’Alsace à fond rouge’ (sold 10 December 1781, lot 1). Prominent figures in the Paris art world also championed the use of French stone. Amongst these was the sculptor, Jean-Baptiste Feuillet, who co-owned a quarry in Alsace on land belonging to the Duchesse de Mazarin. When her death led him to dissolve the company, he organised an auction of his stock on 23 March 1784. On sale were marbres d’Alsace, tels que porphyre, granit, serpentin, etc., composée de vases de différentes formes […] dont plusieurs montés en bronze d’or mat et d’autres prêts à être dorés, exécutés sur de beaux profils et modèles de M. Feuillet (Alsace marbles, such as porphyry, granite, serpentine, etc., composed of vases of different shapes […] including several mounted in matt gold bronze and others ready to be gilded, executed according to beautiful designs and models by Mr. Feuillet).

Lots 2, 3, 4, 7, and 8 in Feuillet’s sale were all pairs of large gilt bronze-mounted vases and pedestals in Granit Rose ranging in total height from 24 to 47 pouces (roughly 65-127 cm. or 26-50 in.), thus confirming vases of a scale comparable to these ones were being produced in the 1780s. Interestingly the sale also included several lots of unmounted pink granite vases and un-gilded bronze mounts, suggesting that unfinished works were in circulation prior to the Revolution and may have remained in workshop stocks going into the first decades of the 19th Century. Meanwhile, the 1797 collection sale of the financier, Grimod de la Reynière included as lots 81 and 82 two pairs of vases in the ‘belle matière’ of ‘Granit des Vosges imitant le granit rose oriental’. The first of these lots – as with these vases – had mounts in the form of children holding laurel swags.

The Mount model
The motif of a half figure of a boy with a plump belly holding garlands in his raised arms appears in a drawing for a two-branch wall light attributed to the sculptor and bronze chaser Jean-Louis Prieur (1732-1795) sold Sotheby’s Monaco, 26 November 1979, lot 598 (ill. in Ottomeyer and Pröschel, op. cit., p. 173). Wall lights based on this design were executed in both three- and two-light versions; examples of the latter include a pair formerly in the Goldschmidt-Rothschild collection, Berlin, and a set of four sold Sotheby’s New York, 10 November 2006, lot 54.

Prieur employed similar figures of children in other designs for candelabra, wall lights and chandeliers, and this design element was taken up by other artists, such as the draughtsman and ornamental engraver Jean-François Forty (active circa 1775-1790).