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Item Description / Dealer Expertise
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An outstanding large scale Regence revival gilt bronze mounted onyx vase and cover. The vase is flanked by exotic winged beast scroll handles which are surmounted by bearded male busts. The gallery is pierced and enriched with applied paterae and low relief engraved ornament. The cover has an elaborately cast foliate and berry finial. The whole is supported by four boldly modelled claw feet that stand on a concave sided plinth.
Literature:
E. Williamson, Les meubles d'art du mobilier national, 1883, 'cette cassolette est placee dans une des pieces de l'appartement de Louis XV au Pallais de Versailles' (see forward to the present sale for the Louvre example exhibited in 1882)
Another, in the Jones Collection (no. 1137), Victoria & Albert Museum, shown in an engraving illustrated in O. Brackett, Catalogue of the Jones Collection, London, 1922, fig. 4
It is interesting to note that Alfred Beurdeley copied this royal model. A single example by him but in alabaster, perhaps this vase and cover, was sold at Palais d'Orsay. Collections Beurdeley, Exceptionnel ensemble de meubles et objets d'art du xixe siecle, May 16, 1979, lot 48 (illustrated) and was exhibited in his stand at the 1889 Paris Universal Exhibition.
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