Bague en or gris, ornée d'un élégant diamant de taille émeraude pesant 6,39 cts. Estimation : 60 000 € / 70 000 €. Photo HÔTEL DES VENTES DE MONTE-CARLO

Dimensions de la pierre : 13,24 x 8,80 x 5,49 mm. Poids : 5,2 g. 

An 18K gold ring set with a rectangular step-cut diamond weighing 6,39 cts. 

La pierre accompagnée d'un certificat G.I.A. attestant : couleur E, pureté SI2

HÔTEL DES VENTES DE MONTE-CARLO, 98000 MONACO. Importants Bijoux, le 19 Juillet 2015 à 10h et 14h30

Bague solitaire en platine, ornée d'un diamant rond de taille brillant pesant 5,88 cts. Estimation : 60 000 € / 80 000 €. Photo HÔTEL DES VENTES DE MONTE-CARLO

Dimensions de la pierre : 11,79 - 11,90 x 6,91 mm. Poids : 5,8 g.

A platinum ring set with a brilliant cut diamond weighing 5,88 cts.

La pierre accompagnée d'un certificat L.F.G. attestant : couleur J, pureté VS1. 

HÔTEL DES VENTES DE MONTE-CARLO, 98000 MONACO. Importants Bijoux, le 19 Juillet 2015 à 10h et 14h30

 The beautifully preserved skeleton of the winged and feathered dinosaur Zhenyuanlong suni discovered in China. Photograph: Junchang Lü

PARIS (AFP).- Depicted by movie-makers as mean, green, man-eating lizards covered in scales, velociraptors probably looked more like large, toothy turkeys, a study said Thursday. 

Close study of a newly-discovered cousin dubbed Zhenyuanlong suni, has revealed that velociraptors likely had large wings and feathery coats, according to research published in the journal Scientific Reports. 

"The real velociraptor was not a green, scaly monster like in Jurassic Park," study co-author Steve Brusatte of the University of Edinburgh told AFP. 

"The real velociraptor looked like Zhenyuanlong: a fluffy feathered killer." 

Brusatte and a team made a fossil reconstruction of Zhenyuanlong, one of the velociraptor's closest relatives, which lived in China's northeastern Liaoning province some 125 million years ago. 

It is the largest dinosaur with wings discovered to date.

Artist’s impression of Zhenyuanlong suni. Photo: Chuang Zhao. 

Zhenyuanlong was about two metres (6.6 feet) long from snout to tail, weighed about 20 kilos (44 pounds), and was a meat-eater. 

"Zhenyuanlong is a dinosaur that looks just like a bird," Brusatte told AFP by email -- apart from sharp claws on its wings and a mouth full of teeth. 

The Chinese fossil is so well preserved that one can clearly see different kinds of feathers, including hair-like plumes on the body and big quill pen feathers on the arms.  

Zhenyuanlong would have had "dense feathers" on its wings and tail, according to the team's analysis. 

"So it is a fairly large dinosaur with short arms bit it still has wings that look just like those of living birds," Brusatte said. 

"That raises a really big mystery: why would such an animal have wings?" 

It was probably not for flying: Zhenyuanlong was too big and its arms too short to allow it to take to the air. 

The team speculated the wings may have been used for display or for protecting its eggs in the nest. 

"And maybe that means that wings didn't even initially evolve for flight, but for another function!" Brusatte said. 

"A few years ago, I think most paleontologists would have said that big feathers and wings evolved for flight. But now we don't know anymore." 

Scientists had previously observed quill attachment points, or knobs, on the arms velociraptor fossils, but no actual feathers -- meaning they did not know what type or size of plumes it would have had, or for what purpose. 

"We are lucky with Zhenyuanlong. It is found in an area where volcanoes buried dinosaurs, preserving fine details of their feathers," Brusatte said. 

"So Zhenyuanlong tells us what the feathers of velociraptor probably would have looked like.... They would have had feathers like Zhenyuanlong and even big wings on the arms," he said. 

"They would also have been much smaller than their reconstructed movie counterparts. A real velociraptor was a little smaller than Zhenyuanlong," Brusatte added. 

"It was only about the size of a poodle dog!" 

Paleontologists believe the first birds appeared 150 million years ago and were descendants of small feathered dinosaurs. By: Mariette Le Roux © 1994-2015 Agence France-Presse

Dr Steve Brusatte and Professor Junchang Lü with skeleton of Zhenyuanlong suni. Photo: Martin Kundrat.

Marie-Louise-Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun (French, 1755–1842), Portrait of Theresa, Countess Kinsky, 1793. Oil on canvas, 54-1/8 x 39-3/8 in. (137.5 x 100.0 cm). The Norton Simon Foundation . © The Norton Simon Foundation

PASADENA, CA.- The Norton Simon Museum presents an exhibition that traces the effects of three synthetic blue pigments on French artists. The accidental discovery of Prussian blue in an alchemist’s laboratory around 1704 helped open up new possibilities for artistic expression at the dawn of the Enlightenment. Through stunning works from the Simon’s collection, alongside a handful of loans, A Revolution of the Palette explores the use of this pigment, followed by the introduction of cobalt blue and synthetic ultramarine, by French artists from the Rococo period to the threshold of Impressionism. 

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (French, 1780–1867), Baron Joseph-Pierre Vialetès de Mortarieu, 1805–1806.  Oil on canvas, 24-1/8 x 19-3/4 in. (61.2 x 50.2 cm). The Norton Simon Foundation © The Norton Simon Foundation

A new palette available to artists, thanks largely to the addition of Prussian blue in the 18th century, helped fuel the heated philosophical debates regarding Newtonian color theory. The fascinating new capabilities of artists to exploit sophisticated color relationships based on scientific optical principles became a core precept of Rococo painting, or peinture moderne as it was called at the time. Exquisite examples of the early use of Prussian blue by Fragonard and his immediate circle demonstrate their technical achievements. Paintings by Vigée-Lebrun, Prud’hon and Ingres show the masterful use of Prussian blue as Neoclassicism took hold. The sophisticated, subtle manipulations of color in academic painting of the period, exemplified by Ducis’ Sappho Recalled to Life by the Charm of Music and Degas’ early and ambitious emulation of a Poussin composition, The Rape of the Sabines, rely heavily on the ability of the new blues to deftly modulate tone and hue in ways never available to earlier painters. 

Jean-Honoré Fragonard (French, 1732–1806), Happy Lovers, c. 1760–65. Oil on canvas, 35-1/2 x 47-3/4 in. (90.2 x 121.3 cm). The Norton Simon Foundation © The Norton Simon Foundation.

As revolutionary as this new greenish-blue color proved to be, Prussian blue was a mere precursor to the explosion of available colors brought about by the Industrial Revolution. Indeed, the French government played an active role in catalyzing innovation at the dawn of the 19th century, as the country emerged from the Revolution with its economy in disarray. The newly appointed administrator of the Sèvres Porcelain Manufactory, Alexandre Brongniart (1770–1847), oversaw chemist Louis Jacques Thénard’s development of the next synthetic blue, a vivid cobalt blue pigment, inspired by the traditional cobalt oxide blue glazes seen on 18th-century Sèvres porcelain. An exquisite lidded vase on loan from the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens illustrates this. 

Louis Ducis (French, 1775–1847), Sappho Recalled to Life by the Charm of Music, c. 1811. Oil on canvas, 45-3/8 x 57-5/8 in. (115.2 x 146.3 cm). The Norton Simon Foundation, Gift of Mr. Norton Simon © The Norton Simon Foundation.

The third synthetic blue to emerge was the culmination of centuries of searching for a cheap, plentiful, high-quality replacement for the most valuable of all pigments: natural ultramarine. This was a color derived from lapis lazuli, a rare, semiprecious gemstone mined almost exclusively in Afghanistan since the 6th century, and imported to Europe through Venice. It is famously known to have been more costly than gold during the Renaissance. Natural ultramarine provided a brilliant, royal blue hue, but only if coarsely ground and applied in a comparatively translucent glaze over a light-reflecting ground. Other blue colors, such as smalt, which was essentially composed of particles of colored glass, were available to help achieve the lovely hues of ultramarine, but the poor covering ability of the paint and the difficulty of its preparation and use were familiar limitations. 

Edgar Degas (French, 1834–1917), The Rape of the Sabines (after Poussin), 1861–62. Oil on canvas, 59 x 81-1/2 in. (149.9 x 207.0 cm). The Norton Simon Foundation, Gift of Mr. Norton Simon  © Norton Simon Art Foundation

In 1824, the French government announced a competition among chemists to develop a true synthetic ultramarine. The prize was finally awarded in 1828 to Jean-Baptiste Guimet. Painters at last had an affordable, fully balanced palette of cool and warm colors spanning the full spectrum. This fact, combined with the innovation of ready-mixed tube oil colors, greatly facilitated the direct representation of nature. The ability of painters to capture a wide range of observed natural effects in the landscape en plein air are represented by the works of Corot, Guigou, Monticelli and Dupré. A Revolution of the Palette closes with two canvases representing the Impressionists’ full realization of the wide-open possibilities made possible by these new blues: Guillaumin’s The Seine at Charenton (formerly Daybreak) and Caillebotte’s Canoe on the Yerres River. 

A Revolution of the Palette: The First Synthetic Blues and Their Impact on French Artists is curated by Conservator John Griswold. A series of events will be offered in conjunction with the exhibition.

Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot (French, 1796–1875), Thatched Cottage in Normandy, c. 1872 Oil on canvas, 17-3/4 x 24-1/16 in. (45.1 x 61.2 cm). Norton Simon Art Foundation, Gift of Jennifer Jones Simon © Norton Simon Art Foundation

Gustave Caillebotte (French, 1848–1894), Canoe on the Yerres River, 1878. Oil on canvas, 25-7/8 x 31-7/8 in. (65.7 x 81.0 cm). Norton Simon Art Foundation, from the Estate of Jennifer Jones Simon © Norton Simon Art Foundation

Paul-Camille Guigou (French, 1834–1871) , Landscape in Martigues, 1869. Oil on canvas, 11 x 18-1/4 in. (27.9 x 46.4 cm), Norton Simon Art Foundation © Norton Simon Art Foundation

Jean-Baptiste Armand Guillaumin (French, 1841–1927), The Seine at Charenton (formerly Daybreak), 1874. Oil on canvas, 21-1/4 x 25-3/8 in. (53.3 x 63.5 cm). Norton Simon Art Foundation  © Norton Simon Art Foundation

Pierre SOULAGES (born 1919), Peinture 130 x 97 cm, 5 mai 1959. Oil on canvas. Signed lower right, 130 x 97 cm. Courtesy Galerie Applicat-Prazan, Paris. Photos Art Digital Studio © Adagp, Paris 2015

For the second consecutive year, Applicat-Prazan is pleased to participate in Frieze Masters in London from 14th to 18th October 2015. The organisers of this event, which is one of the most discerning art fairs in the world, say that Frieze Masters “offers a contemporary focus on historical art.” It is precisely in this spirit that Applicat-Prazan will be showing museum quality paintings, true landmarks of modern art, by Alberto Magnelli, Wifredo Lam, André Masson, Pierre Soulages, Nicolas de Staël and Zao Wou-Ki. 

Two stunning blue paintings from the 50’s by Pierre Soulages have been specifically gathered for the fair. In the 50’s Pierre Soulages exhibited his works abroad. He had exhibitions at the Birch Gallery in Copenhagen in 1951, at the Stangl Gallery in Munich in 1952, at the Kootz Gallery in New York and at the Art Club of Chicago in 1954, at the Gimpel & Fils Gallery in London and at the Kootz Gallery again in 1955. In this year, his painting underwent a metamorphosis. “Towards 1955, the signs tend to disappear from my painting and often give way to juxtaposed brush strokes. A spatial rhythm of sorts arises from the repetition of these almost similar strokes and the stronger the rhythm becomes, the less the temptation of a figurative association becomes possible.” It is this rhythm which is a constant feature of Soulages’ work and he describes it: “The rhythm I express is born when a given form is associated with another, experiencing space and its subdivision. He who observes my painting reads it with his own sensitivity and his own experience of the world which are confronted with the proposition of my painting. My painting has always been external to the dilemma of figurative or non-figurative art. My work does not arise from an object or a landscape that is subsequently transformed, nor, conversely, do I paint to elicit their apparition. I expect more from the rhythm, from the measures/beats of the shapes in the space, of the carving up of the space by time. Space and time…. become the instruments of the poetry of the canvas.” 1 

Pierre SOULAGES (born 1919), Peinture 100 x 73 cm, 25 février 1955. Oil on canvas. Signed lower right; Dated and signed on the reverse, 100 x 73 cm. Courtesy Galerie Applicat-Prazan, Paris. Photos Art Digital Studio © Adagp, Paris 2015

Soulages’ work carries an extraordinary physical weight, a density and a depth that are closely related to the importance he gives to the materials and the unusual instruments he uses some of which being more often used by book-binders, tanners, carpenters and apiarists. His passion for technique and tools has brought him to make some of them himself such as scrapers, plane blades, coating knives, large or miniscule Chinese-type brushes. He also uses paint brushes with long handles allowing him to paint standing directly over the canvas spread out at his feet on the floor. 

Alberto MAGNELLI (1888 - 1971), L'Attente, 1917. Oil on canvas, 140 x 93 cm. Courtesy Galerie Applicat-Prazan, Paris. Photos Art Digital Studio © Adagp, Paris 2015

In 2005, Applicat-Prazan showed Alberto Magnelli’s 1917 La Toilette, an oil on canvas which subsequently held for a long time the world record at auction. This year, Applicat-Prazan is proposing L’Attente, also painted in 1917 and shown at all the important retrospective exhibitions of the artist. A self-taught artist, Alberto Magnelli became one of the most inventive avant-garde painters, exploring the visual impact of flat areas of colour surrounded by black contours from his first visit to Paris in 1914. Stranded in his native Florence by World War I in 1915, he painted his first series of non-figurative works. The first Italian artist to turn to abstract painting and a close friend of Apollinaire, Max Jacob, Picasso and Léger, Magnelli worked on an elliptical figuration, progressively eliminating figurative devices by logical simplification. In 1916 and 1917 he went back to introducing figures into his compositions. His painting evokes a metaphysical dimension echoing certain realms of his friend de Chirico. Magnelli’s palette is resplendent with flat areas of colours now leaving out the black contours altogether, with nothing separating the colours which are now in direct confrontation with one another. 

The French curator, Daniel Abadie has said of this painting: “By keeping only the contour of an arm, of a hand, only suggesting the volume of an area by a void, as Archipenko used to do with his sculpture, Magnelli sought intuitive solutions, surprising even to Picasso. It was a technique he had already alluded to earlier, in his Femme au bouquet (1913), now in the Musée Magnelli in Vallauris. He would render an incidental fragment of a composition invisible by substituting it with a flat colour-equivalent. The geometries and schematic shapes of his paintings recall the spirit of cubism. Not in the same manner of his paintings of 1913 which analyse the forms by decomposing them, but in a newly nascent movement of synthetic cubism.” 

Wifredo LAM (1902 - 1982), Nu à la chaise, 1942. Tempera on paper mounted on canvas. Signed and dated lower left; Signed and dated on the reverse, 165 x 98 cm. Courtesy Galerie Applicat-Prazan, Paris. Photos Art Digital Studio © Adagp, Paris 2015

Originally from Cuba, born of a Chinese father and an Afro-Cuban mother, Wifredo Lam joined the Surrealist movement in 1938. He frequented many groups of avant-garde painters but always remained attached to his own specific cultural origins. Incarnating a combination of the identities of diverse continents, Lam was close friends with Picasso, Breton, Duchamp and Jorn. He often showed his works with the Surrealists but also with artists of other experimental movements of his time. The Nu à la chaise is characteristic of Lam’s paintings of 1942, a particularly favourable year in his life when he had his first personal exhibition at the Pierre Matisse Gallery in New York. The specialist, Pierre Loeb wrote of him, “He was greatly encouraged by Picasso, to whom Lam owed a great deal, not stylistically speaking, but by inspiring him with a spirit of freedom and with the audacity to express his myriad painting in a western register whilst capturing the attributes of tropical magic and poetry.”

André MASSON (1896 - 1987), Leonardo da Vinci et Isabella d'Este, 1942. Oil on canvas. Signed and dated lower left; titled and dated on the reverse, 100 x 127 cm. Courtesy Galerie Applicat-Prazan, Paris. Photos Art Digital Studio © Adagp, Paris 2015

André Masson’s Leonardo da Vinci et Isabella d’Este, another work painted in 1942, is a capital painting in the artist’s production. After his Spanish period, the American period is a period of exile full of fundamental discoveries and extreme experiences which durably nourished the imagination and work of André Masson, another member of the Surrealist movement. He was close friends with Paul Eluard, Georges Bataille and Antonin Arthaud. As of October 1941, Masson lived in the United States with his family where he frequented André Breton, Alexander Calder, Marc Chagall and Georges Duthuit. From automatism to dripping, Masson’s work was characterized by a combination of pure instinct and intellectual reasoning which map-out the principal themes of modern art. His work was a major source of inspiration to the young generation of American expressionists and particularly to Jackson Pollock.

Pots et Pinceaux is a chromatic marvel painted by Nicolas de Staël in 1955, the last year of his life. This still-life painted in Antibes emanates an atmosphere of extraordinary serenity and evokes tones and shapes reminiscent of some of Giorgio Morandi’s compositions. In February 1955, Staël worked vertiginously, simultaneously painting many canvasses representing the painter’s studio, boats, seascapes, skies and still lives. On the 17th February, he wrote to his dealer Jacques Dubourg: “Generally speaking, Antibes is good for me, my painting is less virulent, more balanced.” “Stimulated by the project of an exhibition with Jacques Dubourg in Antibes and with the Museum of Zurich (which only took place in 1965), Nicolas de Staël worked on many paintings at the same time, starting them, coming back to them again and again, from dawn to dusk, playing with contrasting themes such as the still life, the artist’s workshop, boats, in order to reveal his colours or to reach out to the frontiers of absolute whites. […] These still-lives and artist’s studios are defined by contrived juxtapositions of squares, rectangles which gather force and mystery as in La Cathedrale, in which his palette is either elevated to an instant of time, or flattened by the darkness of black.” 2

ZAO WOU-KI (1921 - 2013), 16.4.62, 1962. Oil on canvas. Signed lower right; signed and titled/dated on the reverse, 73 x 100 cm. Courtesy Galerie Applicat-Prazan, Paris. Photos Art Digital Studio © Adagp, Paris 2015

In 1962, the year the Chinese-born painter Zao Wou Ki became a French citizen, he painted this oil on canvas entitled 16.4.62. Since 1959, he lived and worked in a house located rue Jonquoy, a quiet street in the 14th arrondissement in Paris with natural light streaming in through large bay-windows and where the outside world could not interrupt his tranquility. His finished paintings were turned around to face the wall. The titles disappeared to be replaced by the dates of the termination of his works. His paintings became more fluid, following the rhythm of the weather and the seasons. The art critic Michel Ragon, describes his work as an “abstract landscapism.” 

Zao Wou Ki explained his inspiration saying “It is undeniable that the influence of Paris on my painting has been central to my learning process as an artist, but I must also say that I gradually rediscovered China as my personality affirmed itself. In my more recent work, my personality expresses itself instinctively. Paradoxically, perhaps, it is my being in Paris that reveals this return to my origins.” 

The Siberian Mouse. A pearl, gold and enamel automaton mouse, attributed to Henri Maillardet, circa 1805. Estimate   200,000 — 300,000  GBP. Lot. Sold 365,000 GBP. Photo Sotheby's.

modelled as a lifesize white mouse with enamelled fur set with irregularly-shaped baroque pearls, chased gold ears and paws, round ruby cabochon eyes, the underside chased with diapered texturing, when a button below the perky mesh tail is pressed the mouse skitters, twirls and pauses to sniff the air and nibble in a most realistic manner, unmarked, one ear and bristle whiskers replaced, with later key. Quantité: 2 - mouse 5.5 cm., 2 1/8 in. long, with tail 12.5 cm., 5 in. long

Provenance: Family collection, believed to have been acquired in the late 19th or early 20th Century;
the Property of a Lady of Title

Bibliography: L. Montandon & A. Chapuis, 'Les Maillardet', Musée Neuchatelois, 1917-18;
A. Chapuis & E. Gélis, Le Monde des Automates. Paris, 1928;
Alfred Chapuis & Edmond Droz, Les Automates, Neuchatel, 1949;
Exhibition catalogue, Antique Automatons, A La Vieille Russie, New York, 1950;
Exhibition catalogue, Horloges et Automates,, Musee du Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers, Paris, 1954;
R. Altick, The Shows of London, Cambridge, 1978;
A. Winter-Jensen, Automates et Musiques, Musée de l'Horlogerie, Geneva, 1985;
Sharon & Christian Bailly, Oiseaux de Bonheur, Geneva, 2001;
Bernard Pin, Watches & Automata, The Maurice Sandoz Collection, Le Locle, 2011;
Exhibition catalogue, Automates & Merveilles, Le Locle, 2012 ;
and archival sources in Geneva and London

Note: The ‘Siberian Mouse’ is perhaps the most active and realistic in action of the small animal automata exhibited by Henri Maillardet in England and Ireland in the early 19th century. Of life size, this mouse darts forward, twirls nervously fearing a concealed cat, then scampers in a different direction before, reassured, it pauses to nibble at an invisible morsel and sets off once again. There is no doubt that the creator had plenty of experience in watching live mice. An example offered on the second day’s sale of Thomas Weeks’s Mechanical Museum in Tichborne Street, London, on 15 July 1834, following the death of its nonagenarian proprietor, was rather more succinctly described as: ‘An animated mouse, executed of gold and Oriental pearls, which runs about the table and feeds itself’. At that date it was considered an old-fashioned object and was purchased by Garrards for 24 guineas, which is roughly equivalent to half the current low estimate.

Only eight or nine automaton mice are known to have survived and are now or were formerly owned by a number of important collections including the Bowes Museum, Co. Durham, the Sandoz collection, now at Le Locle, Sir David Salomons collection, Jerusalem, and the Patek Philippe Museum, Geneva. The current example which is known to have been in the hands of the present owner’s family for the last two generations at least, is not previously documented. All are set with graduated pearls but are enamelled in a variety of colours including pale blue, dark blue and dark grey. The present mouse with its white enamelled fur is a true Siberian mouse, whose grey fur was believed to turn white in winter to make it invisible in the snow.  Its actions appear nearer to Maillardet’s original mouse than the Sandoz mouse, for example, or that fomerly in the Ikle collection described by Chapuis, which only travel in one direction before stopping, sitting up and nodding their heads.  When Maillardet and his partner Philipstal exhibited their automata in London in 1811, a note on the handbill explained that the mouse ‘will surprise the visitor by its natural cleverness and its ability to run and turn in all directions like a live animal’ just like the present mouse. 

Although Henri Maillardet and his showman partners exhibited the small animals, and members of his family also exhibited similar automata throughout Europe in the first part of the 19th century, it is still not certain who exactly was responsible for their inception and construction.  Henry Maillardet is a well-known but rather misty figure in the world of automata in comparison with his more famous associates: James Cox, Pierre and Henri-Louis Jaquet-Droz and Jean-Frédéric Leschot. One cannot be sure whether he was more of a middleman, salesman and showman, or an inventor/creator of automats in his own right. Certainly, like the others and often through circumstances outside their control, his career teetered precariously between success and more frequent financial difficulty. Born at Meyriez in Switzerland, in 1745, Henri and his two brothers are said to have been trained in the Jaquet-Droz workshops before establishing themselves as clockmakers in the village of Fontaines.  Henry and Jean-David are recorded in 1769 as pendulistes under Huguenin working for Frederick the Great in Berlin. By 1783 Henri had arrived in London where a contract witnessed by James Cox was signed between Henry-Louis Jaquet-Droz and Henry Maillardet on 10 May 1783 establishing a London branch of the Jaquet-Droz business, called Jaquet-Droz & Leschot. Maillardet, then a bachelor, was employed to run the firm's London business and workshop in Bartlett's Buildings. The tools belonged to the two partners equally, Maillardet was to receive a salary of £27 annually and the same sum for each of the workmen or apprentices that he needed to feed and house. On the strength of this, Henry married Louise Mourer of Lausanne; their daughter, Louisa Henrietta, was christened at St Andrew, Holborn on 20 March 1785 and their son, Edward Frederick, on 21 August 1786. Success was short-lived as the firm was in trouble by the late 80s and in liquidation in both London and Geneva after Pierre Jaquet-Droz's death in 1790 and that of his son Henri-Louis in 1791. Despite the originality and craftsmanship of the clocks, watches and small automata created by the firm, they had invested too heavily in the China trade on their own account and in partnership with various London merchants and Cox & Beale of Canton. 

The years between 1791 and 1798 were spent by Leschot in Geneva and Maillardet in London, attempting unsuccessfully to recreate the earlier successes of Jaquet-Droz and Leschot. By 1798, Henri Maillardet seems to have changed direction and set himself up as a showman. He took over the former premises of Cox's Museum, the Great Promenade Rooms in Spring Gardens (Proprietor: Mr Wigley, 'Inventor and Manufacturer of Elastic Spring Bands'). Here, gradually acquiring new attractions, he showed his 'Wonderful Automatons ... consisting of the Mechanical Musical Lady; the entertaining Fortune-Teller; the pleasing Tumbler; and the wonderful Writing Boy, with the beautiful Singing Bird in a Gold Snuff-box. Also a Siberian mouse etc., etc.' Sadly, although apparently retaining a financial interest in the collection of automata for many years as it was taken on tour round Britain by various successors, Maillardet fell on hard times and died in penury in Belgium between 1827 and 1830. 

It is still disputed as to whether both the large and small automatons were the work of Maillardet himself, the Maillardet family or supplied to Maillardet by an unknown maker. Certainly from their style the smaller pieces appear to have had at least their beautifully-enamelled and bejewelled gold exteriors created in Geneva but whether the movements were invented and made by Maillardet as was traditionally believed, remains an open question.  

Sotheby's. Treasures, 08 juillet 2015 | 5:30 PM BST - Londres

A German parcel-gilt silver and enamelled cup and cover, Caspar Widman, Nuremberg, 1559-70. Estimate 40,000 — 60,000  GBP. Lot. Sold 281,000 GBP. Photo Sotheby's.

of hexafoil columbine form, fitted inside the cover with a 1526 medal of Friedrich Behaim VII of Nuremberg, the body, cover and foot fitted with blue, green and red enamelled discs, red enamel also at the finial, cast, chased and engraved with stippled arabesque strapwork, foliage and fruit, marked on body, cover and foot; 28cm., 11in. high; 519gr., 16oz. 14dwt.

Provenance: Most probably a member of the Behaim von Schwarzbach family
Mayer Carl von Rothschild (1820-1886)
His sixth surviving daughter Bertha Clara (1862-1903)
Her husband Prince Louis Berthier de Wagram (1836-1911), sold on his death
Galerie George Petit, Paris, 12 and 13 June 1911, Orfèvrerie Allemande, Flamande, Espagnole, Italienne etc., Provenant de l’ancienne collection du feu M. le Baron Carl Mayer (sic)  de Rothschild, lot 9. 

Mayer Carl von Rothschild (1820-1886)

Bibliography:  Ferdinand Luthmer, Der Schatz des Freiherrn Karl von Rothschild, Meisterwerke alter Goldschmiedekunst aus dem 14.-18. Jahrhundert, Frankfurt a.M., 1882, vol. I no. XXVI

Marc Rosenberg, Die drei soggenannten Jamnitzer Becher.  In Kunst und Gewerbe, bd. 19, 1885 pp. 298-305. nos. 15 and 17

Marc Rosenberg, Der Goldschmiede Merkzeichen, Frankfurt a.M., 1925, no. 3929(c)

Karin Tebbe et al.,  Nürnberger Goldschmiedekunst 1541-1868, Nuremberg, 2007, no. 962, Literature: `Ein Akeleipokal mit Dekel im Formtyp des Nürnberger Meisterstücks ehemals in der Sammlung Rothschild in Frankfurt, 1911 im Kunsthandel, Verlieb unbekannt’

Note: The medal inside the cover of the cup (see detail) shows the profile of the 35-year-old Friedrich Behaim VII von Schwarzbach (1491-1533).1 Profoundly Lutheran, he was a member of one of the twenty 'old' Nuremberg families solely eligible for office in the city’s decisive ruling bodies, where he served as Ratsherr, Bürgermeister and member of the war council. The reverse of this medal, known from bronze and silver examples2 is dated 1526 and inscribed with a dedication relating to Luther’s teachings. It is quite likely to be connected to the second Diet of Speyer of 1526, an important event for Lutheran Nuremberg and Friedrich Behaim, as it saw the lifting, however temporarily of the Imperial injunction against Martin Luther and his works.  The medal was probably placed in the cover of this cup by a member of the Behaim family to commemorate their ancestor.3 Commemoration of Friedrich Behaim VII by this medal is known to have happened, as a record exists of what must be his grandchildren Paulus, Friedrich and Katharina Behaim, planning to cast the medal in silver to form pendants in his honour in 1586.4 The cup was acquired before 1882 by Mayer Carl Rothschild, Frankfurt banker and heroic collector; it is published and illustrated in that year in the record made of some of his treasures by his executor Ferdinand Luthmer (see fig. 1). Luthmer describes it as 'Pokale..an die formen der Jamnitzer-Becher,' a term used at the time for what is otherwise known as a columbine or Akelei cup  (shaped like an Aquilegia flower). This was the shape for the item of silver that Nuremberg goldsmiths were required to complete as one of the three tests before becoming masters of the guild.

Der Schatz des Freiherrn Karl von Rothschild, Meisterwerke Alter Goldschmiedekunst, plate 26.

Marc Rosenberg in Drei Soggenanten Jamnitzer Becher remarks on the 'striking kinship' between the cup now offered and a design by Virgil Solis, the Nuremberg printmaker and engraver (see fig. 2). After Mayer Carl’s death in 1886 his collection of mostly German works of art kept at the Frankfurt country house of Günthersburg amounting to over 500 pieces, was divided into five portions by a group of experts, which included Ferdinand Luthmer.  The cup is listed in the first portion no. 181c as:  

'Becher Jamnitzerform, silb. Verg., auf dem Dreipass-Fuss sowie dem sechstheiligen Körper und Deckel entsprechende Medaillons, Auflage in Email translucide auf Silber, Spitze Blume mit roth. Email translucide. Durchm. 11 ½ cm., Höhe 18cm [sic]'

Virgil Solis, Drinking Cups, Vases Ewers and Ornaments designed for the Use of Gold and Silversmiths. Published by James Rimnell, London, 1862.

This first portion was bequeathed to Carl Mayer’s seventh daughter Bertha Clara (1862-1903) who had married the Prince de Wagram in 1882 and lived in Paris. When the prince, who outlived his wife, died in 1911, the cup was sold at the Galerie George Petit, lot 9, to the dealer A.S Drey for 30,000 Francs or £1,200 equivalent

Ellis William Roberts, Portrait of Bertha-Clara von Rothschild (1862-1903) © Private collection

Caspar Widman (working dates 1554-1590) is recorded as a chosen goldsmith of the Nuremberg council,5 the governing body controlled by patrician figures such as Friedrich Behaim VII. A pair of stacking beakers by this master dated 1565 and with the arms of three Nuremberg patrician families, Muffel, Tucher and Rieter, was sold Sotheby's, London, 18 December 2007, lot 196.  A third beaker, possibly part of that series, is at Anglesey Abbey, near Cambridge.

1. It is one of a group of medals by the anonymous Nuremberg master of 1525-27, associated with the hand of Matthias Gebel (circa 1500-1574). See: Marjorie Trusted, German Renaissance Medals, A Catalogue of the Collection in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London 1990, p. 84
2. Op. cit. no. 130; and exhibition catalogue, Wenzel Jamnitzer und die Nürnberger Goldschmiedekunst 1500-1700, Germanisches Nationalmuseum, 28 June-15 September 1985, no. 601
3. An example of such a thing happening would include three Nuremberg cups of 1582 by Hans Kellner, which had a commemorative medal of Johann Wilhelm Löffelholtz (1558-1600), fitted in their covers after his death in 1601. See: Monica Bachtler, Goldschmiedekunst, Bielefeld, 1986 no. 13
4. Georg Habich, Die Deutschen Schaumünzen des XVI Jahrhunderts, vol. I, reprinted London, 1994, p. 138, no. 942
5. Karin Tebbe et al. Nürnberger Goldschmiedekunst 1541-1868, Nuremberg, 2007 no. 962

Sotheby's. Treasures, 08 juillet 2015 | 5:30 PM BST - Londres

A blue and white kendi with German silver-gilt mounts, the porcelain Ming Dynasty, Wanli Period (1572-1620), the mounts unmarked, probably Augsburg or Nuremberg, early 17th century. Estimate 200,000 — 300,000  GBP. Lot. Sold 245,000 GBP. Photo Sotheby's.

the lobed compressed spherical body rising from a flat base, to a tall cylindrical neck, painted with roundels of a horse, crane and lion below a wide band of peony and chrysanthemum at the shoulder, the ribbed domed spout with various diaper panels, each bordered with an antler motif, with further roundels to the top of the neck, below a band of key-fret at the mouth, the subtly matted silver-gilt mounts echoing the antler motifs and flowers and incorporating bats' wings with entwined strapwork and a grotesque mask with lobate jowls and winged ears; 22.5cm., 9in. high

Provenance: The Dukes of Trachenberg,  Princes of Hatzfeldt.  Formerly Schloss Trachenberg, Silesia

Exhibition: Ausstellung von Goldschmiedearbeiten schlesischen Ursprunges oder aus schlesischem Besitze, Breslau, 1905, no. 816

Bibliography: Erwin Hintze; Karl Masner, Goldschmiedearbeiten Schlesiens; eine Auswahl von Goldschmiedearbeiten schlesischer Herkunft oder aus schlesischem Besitze, Breslau, 1911, p. 39 no. LXIIV. Illustrated with silver-gilt cover and spout mount (now lacking)
D.F Lunsingh Scheurleer, Chinesisches und Japanisches Porzellan in Europäischen Fassungen, Brunswick, 1980, p. 192

Associated Literature:
Jens Friedhoff, Schloss Trachenberg (Zmigrod) in Niederschlesien. Anmerkungen zur Baugeschichte und Ausstattung, in: Burgen und Schlösser 41 (2000), vol.2 , p. 66-83
Jens Friedhoff, Die Familie von Hatzfeldt, Adelige Wohnkultur und Lebensführung zwischen Renaissance und Barock (Vereinigte Adelsarchive im Rheinland e.V., Schriften, Bd. 1), Düsseldorf, 2004

Note: Striking for its meticulously painted cobalt blue decoration, kendi of this lobed form and design are extremely unusual, and no other closely related example appears to have been published. Blue and white kendi were produced exclusively for export to the Middle East and Southeast Asia, although a small number found their way to Europe. Blue and white wares of this type were produced at non-official kilns in Jingdezhen, Jiangxi province, which were not under strict Imperial supervision. As a result some innovative and original designs were created, as exemplified by this piece. Of particular note are the four different geometric patterns that decorate the spout, the playful rendering of the animal roundels on the body, and the lush flower blooms and leaves on the shoulders.
Compare a slightly smaller kendi of similar lobed form, painted with flower sprays, from the F. Lugt collection and now in the Institut Néerlandais, Paris.1

Chinese porcelain was an exotic and valuable material in the West. It had properties which were unknown to European science;2 it was hard, translucent, impervious to liquid and coming from an exotic land, far away, was, in the early days at least, very difficult to acquire. It was given powers, which like ‘Unicorn horn’ (Narwal) and ‘Serpents’ tongues’ (fossilized sharks’ teeth) could warn of poison or act as an antidote to it.3 No wonder its owners embellished it with precious mounts. In Giovanni Bellini’s ‘The Feast of the Gods’ (National Museum of Washington) painted for a member of the D’Este family in 1514, a parcel-gilt silver beaker and cover lie on the ground while a satyr carries in a Chinese blue and white bowl with silver-gilt handle and strap. Chinese porcelain was still a royal gift towards the end of the 16th Century; Robert Burghley presented Queen Elizabeth I with a gold-mounted bowl in 1587, and a ewer owned by Burghley or his son Robert Cecil with silver-gilt mounts dated 1585 is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.4

Kendi, which were made for the Middle Eastern market and designed for pouring directly into the mouth, appear in a few European paintings from the early 17th Century. An un-mounted example was used by Jan Breughel the elder on at least two occasions including his 1617 allegory of ‘Sight’ in the Prado (acquisition no. po 1394).5 It is visible behind a hardstone cup, part of the Kunstkammer objects of the Habsburg archduke Alberto VII (1559-1621) and his co-Sovereign Clara Eugenia of Spain (1566-1630). An example with silver mounts appears in a painting dated 1615 by Nicolaes Gillis.6 An even more elaborately mounted kendi, is in a painting by Pieter Roestraten (1630-1700).7 (see detail). The handful of mounted examples that have survived,8 have mostly rather plain white mounts of English make. These mounts include a spout in the form of an animal’s head but are otherwise, with the exception of the Boston example, linear and functional. Unlike those,  the current example has silver-gilt mounts which are inventive and complimentary to the Chinese ornament. They are likely to have come from a main centre such as Augsburg or Nuremberg where the skills existed and the goldsmiths were leaders in the current style. Items with Nuremberg mounts, formerly belonging to the princes of Hatzfeldt, and exhibited together with the kendi in 1905, are now in the Thyssen-Bornemisza collection and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.9 The latter item, the silver base and mount of a cup, by Wolf Christof Ritter of Nuremberg, is like the mounts of the kendi, in lobate style.

Pieter Gerritsz van Roestraten, Nature morte. © Sotheby’s London, 2 July 1985, lot 165

The kendi and three other items can be identified in the portrait of Marie, Fürstin von Hatzfeldt (1820-1897), who is seated in a magnificent dress in front of a desk, arranged with family treasures (see following page). On the Fürstin’s right, next to a small marble bust is a carved smoky quartz cup with silver-gilt mounts; to her left below the kendi is a carved rock crystal cup with gold mounts, probably of the Miseroni workshop,10 and also on her left, behind the candlestick, a rock crystal bowl from the Miseroni workshop with gold mounts, given to the cavalry captain and future general field marshal Melchior von Hatzfeldt (1593-1658) by Adolf von Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorf (1600-1631). This became a gift from J. Pierpont Morgan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (acquisition no. 17.190.544). 

Anton Weber, Marie Fürstin v. Hatzfeldt (née von Nimpsch, 1820-1897), Schloss Trachenberg, Silesia, circa 1876. © Private collection. The Kendi is visible on Fürstin’s left.

A smoky quartz cup with silver mounts, early 17th century.© Sotheby’s Amsterdam, 17th December 2008, lot 255.

Two-handled cup, rock crystal and enamelled gold, gift of J. Pierpont Morgan. © 2015. The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Art Resource/Scala, Florence

Despite the limited descriptions of objects in the Hatzfeldt family’s early inventories these three items can be identified in family papers with some confidence from 163411 when the collection was stored in the ‘Hatzfelder Hof’ in Cologne during the Thirty Years’ War. This is where Franz von Hatzfeldt (1596-1642), Prince-Bishop of Würzburg (1631) and of Bamberg (1633) had taken refuge from enemy forces since 1631. These three items are then more obviously in the inventories of 1641,12 still in Cologne, and 1673/74,13 the latter being drawn up following the death of Hermann von Hatzfeldt-Crottorf-Gleichen (1603-1673), the Prince Bishop’s brother.

The earliest inventories also include silver and silver-gilt mounted porcelain items, but it cannot be stated for certain, due to the limited descriptions, that the kendi, is one of these. As the kendi was included in the portrait of the Fürstin made at Schloss Trachenberg in 1876, it can probably be identified from the inventory taken only six years earlier, of items belonging to an Entailed Estate at Schloss Trachenberg , as one of 2 porcelain jugs mounted with silver-gilt and valued at 40 Thalers.14No other reference to silver-gilt mounted porcelain in that inventory is possible. These two porcelain jugs with silver-gilt mounts can be traced back through an earlier inventory of 1779 which also records them as part of the Entailed estate (Majorat) of the Hatzfeldt family, and possibly 1722 where they are recorded at Schloss Crottorf, the ancestral seat of the family. The Majorat was set up in 1662 by Hermann Graf von Hatzfeldt (1603-1673) and ratified by the emperor in 1668. It stipulated that the freie Standesherrschaft Trachenberg, and certain Hatzfeldt property, should always stay with the family. When Hermann Hatzfeldt’s great-great-grandson, Friedrich Karl Franz Cajetan Fürst von Hatzfeldt-Trachenberg (1779-1794) died without issue, Trachenberg together with most of the entailed estate devolved onto the branch of the family Hatzfeldt-Werther-Schönstein headed by Franz Ludwig von Hatzfeldt (1756-1827) who received the Prussian title of a Prince in 1803. Franz Ludwig’s daughter-in-law was Fürstin Marie (1820-1897) who features in the portrait. Not all objects belonging to the Entailed estate are known but some of them such as the mounted hardstone cups in the portrait of Fürstin Hatzfeldt, can be identified from the 1779 inventory.15 As the two porcelain jugs (one of which is probably the kendi), are also recorded in the 1779 inventory as part of the Entail it is possible that they also entered the family collection before 1722.

1. Maura Rinaldi, Kraak Porcelain. A Moment in the History of Trade, London, 1989, pl. 221
2. In 1512 the Portuguese Duarte Barbarosa wrote that it was made ‘from the shells of fish ground fine, from eggshells and white of eggs and other materials…’ Jean Michel Massing, ‘From Marco Polo to Manuel I’, in Encompassing the Globe, Portugal and the World in the 16th and 17th Centuries, the Essays, Washington, 2007, p. 228
3. Op. cit. p.228. In an inventory of 1532, Chinese porcelain is described as `So sound that if some evil people should soil it with poison to harm anybody it would instantly break of itself and fall into pieces rather than tolerate the evil beverage which was meant to injure our inside’
4. Timothy Schroder, Renaissance and Baroque Silver, Mounted Porcelain and Ruby glass from the Zilkha Collection, London, 2012, p. 220
5. Dr. A.I. Spriggs, Oriental Porcelain in Western Paintings 1450-1700, Transactions of the Oriental Ceramic Society, vol. 36 (1964-6), p. 78
6. Op.cit. p 78
7. Pieter Gerritsz van Roestraten (circa 1630-1692) Nature morte, oil on canvas. Sold Sothebys London, 2 July 1985, lot 165
8. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, (55.471) probably English mounts, circa 1610; Victoria and Albert Museum, London, (M220-1916) maker’s mark RP with an escallop, English, late 16th century; The Art Institute of Chicago, ( 1966.133) English mounts, circa 1610; Topkapi Museum, Turkish mounts (TKS 7809), late 16th century
9. Hannelore Müller, The Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, European Silver, London, 1986, no 54; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Accession no. 17.190.630
10. The smoky quartz cup was sold Sothebys Amsterdam, 17 December, 2008 lot 255; the rock crystal cup was sold Lempertz, sale no. 928, 20. November 2008, lot 1015.
11. ‘Specification verscheidener [sic] Altfrenkischer Geschier und Antiquiteten so den 18ten 7brs. 1634 in den Schanck im gewölb eingesetzt worden.
Erstlich ein groß Cristallen geschir, ungefehr 2 Maß haltendt.
It. ein Cristallen drinckgeschier in golt eingefast.
Noch ein Tranckgeschir von Dupasio in golt eingefast
Noch zwey geschir von Cristall in golt gefast.‘
Verzeichnisse ueber gräfl. Hatzfeldsches Gold- und Silbergeschirr, und Bücher de anno 1634 et 1684
(Archiwum Panstwowe Wroclaw, Archivum Hatzfeldtów Nr. 909, p. 6).
12. ‘1 Cristallen geschier, in goldt eingefast, mit gulden Handthaben, vom Hertzogen von Holstein.’
(the Holstein-rock crystal cup, Metropolitan Museum New York)
‘1 gantz dunkel braun geschier von Tupasio in golt gefast, mit rubinen versezt, in einem roten futerall.’
(the smoky quartz cup)
Inventaria und Consignationes über Jouvelen, Silberwerk, Praetiosa, Meubles und Schriften der Hatzfeldischen Familie gehörig 1641 – 1661
(Archiwum Panstwowe Wroclaw, Archivum Hatzfeldtów Nr. 911, p. 6).
13. `Ein dickhe geschnittene Crystallene Trinckhschalen, am Fueß mit einem güldenen Reyff, undt unden ahn deß Fueßranffts mit golt eingefast in einem schwartz ledernem Futral’ (the Lempertz rock crystal cup).
Inventarium über Des Hochgebohrnen Herrn Graffen Hermanns von Hatzfeld und Gleichen Verlassenschaft zu Blanckenhain, Würtzburg und Trachenberg de Annis 1673 et 1674
(Landeshauptarchiv Koblenz, Bestand 56 Nr. 1070, III, Q 47 – 57, Nr. 55, Fol. 49).
14. ‘Titel VI. An Uhren, Tabatieren und anderen kleinen kostbaren oder künstlichen Stücken.
A. An vergoldetem Silber
Zwei weiß und blau porzellaine Krüge mit vergoldetem Silber beschlagen. 40 Thaler’ (Two white and blue porcelain jugs mounted with silver-gilt. 40 Thaler value)
Nachweis derjenigen Veränderungen welche seit dem Inkrafttreten des Allerhöchst am 19tn März 1870 bestätigten Familienschlusses bei der Substanz des Fideicommiss-Fürstenthums Trachenberg und bei dem zugehörigen Fideicommiss-Inventarium bis zum 30tn September 1876 vorgekommen sind
(Archiwum Panstwowe Wroclaw, Archivum Hatzfeldtów No. 3273, p. 25).
15. Inventaria über den sämtlichen Nachlaß des abgelebten Herrrn Fürsten von Hatzfeld De Anno 1779 (Archiwum Panstwowe Wroclaw, Archivum Hatzfeldtów Nr. 835, p.66-69):
A number of other items from the Entail have been identified, which include:
A Fayence Jug dated 1610, with silver-gilt mounts. First mentioned in a Hatzfeldt inventory of 1634 (probably) and certainly in 1641. Sold Dorotheum, 16.10. 2008, lot 1101.
An elephant tusk with gold mounts, mid-16th century, coming from the von Thüngen family. First Hatzfeldt inventory 1673/74. Sold Sothebys, Amsterdam 17 December 2008, lot 258.
A Rhinoceros Horn cup, with German silver-gilt mounts. First Hatzfeldt inventory 1634 when it was unmounted. Second Hatzfeldt inventory of 1641 when it had silver-gilt mounts and a round case. Fourth Hatzfeldt inventory of 1779 when it was recorded with the onyx appliques. “10. ein Geschirr von Rhinoceros mit Silber vergoldt eingefaßt, worauf sieben geschnittene Onix steine sind. Da einer davon in ein Ring gefasst worden, so gehört dieser Ring gleichfalls zum Majorate.‘ (A dish of rhinoceros mounted with silver gilt, applied with seven cut onyx stones. As one stone was mounted in a ring the ring also belongs to the Entailed estate). Sold to Eugen von Gutmann 1912. Acquired by Baron Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza (1875-1947). See Hannelore Müller, The Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, London, 1986, no.54
A rock crystal cross with gold and enamel mounting set with pearls and precious stones, probably Milan, end 16th/beginning 17th century, sold Lempertz, sale no. 928, 20. November 2008, lot 1012. Listed in the inventory of 1634 as “Erstlich ein Crucifix von Golt undt Cristallen mit Perlein undt Rubinen versetzt pro 800 Rthlr.’

Sotheby's. Treasures, 08 juillet 2015 | 5:30 PM BST - Londres

A Louis XV gilt-bronze-mounted jasper ewer, circa 1740. Estimate 150,000 — 300,000  GBP. Lot. Sold 185,000  GBP. Photo Sotheby's.

the pear-shaped body with gilt-bronze hinged lid with putto feeding a lamb, with a pawed and serpentine bodied goat over the handle from which wreaths of garlands join those hanging from the neck of the ewer, on a c-scroll mounted base; 33.5cm. high, 18cm. wide; 1ft. 1 1/4in., 7in.

Provenance: Baron E. de Rothschild, Paris;
With Arnold Seligmann, Paris;
Mrs. Henry Walters Collection, Parke-Bernet Galleries, Inc, 1941;
With Jacques Helft, New York;
Georges Lurcy Collection, Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York, 8-9th November, 1957, lot 319;
With H. Blairman & Sons Ltd, London;
English Private Collection, acquired from the above 24th April 1961;
Thence by descent.

Bibliography: LITERATURE: Alicia M. Priore, “François Boucher’s Designs for Vases and Mounts”, Studies in Decorative Arts, vol. III (2), Summer-Spring 1996, pp. 2-51, ils. 

COMPARATIVE LITERATURE: Museu Calouste Gulbenkian, Álbum, Lisbon, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, 2001, p. 118, n.º 92. 
Katharine Baetjer, James David Draper (ed.), Only the Best: Masterpieces of the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, Lisbon, New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1999, pp. 112-113, n.º 52.
Pierre Verlet, Objets d’art français de la Collection Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon, 1969, s.p., n.º 10.
Peter Fuhring, Juste-Aurèle Meissonier: Un génie du rococo, 1695-1750, Turin, London, Umberto Allemandi, 1999. 

Note: This fascinating ewer is a rare example of a mounted objet after drawings by the celebrated rococo painter and designer François Boucher (1703-1770), who left an important corpus of work for the decorative arts. In addition to his achievements for the Gobelins and Beauvais textile manufactures and the Vincennes and Sèvres porcelain factories, Boucher, a prolific draughtsman, produced a number of designs for vases and mounts, some of which were published in his Livre de Vases of about 1734-38. Published by Gabriel Huquier, it comprised twelve plates, eight engraved by Huquier whilst the remaining four were by A. Bouchet from Lyon (active c.1730-1740). Although he most likely saw and drew antique vases during his stay in Italy in 1728-1731, these plates reveal an idiosyncratic rocaille interpretation of antique motifs. 

Plate 12 of this Livre is directly related to the present ewer (fig.1) and the last one of the folio. Instead of presenting an individual vase as in the previous pages, it presents separately the design for the mounts and the unmounted ewer, revealing a clear concern about documenting the process of mounting the object and therefore demonstrating the importance of the ewer itself. Alice Poirer, who studied Boucher drawings for vases, mentions that this plate “is completely different and may have been drawn at a different date but included to round out the series”, noting nonetheless that all extant copies of the Livre des Vases do include this plate. 

An engraving after a design by François Boucher (Livre de Vases, Paris, Gabriel Huquier, c.1738, pl. 12.)

The bacchic thematic mounts, in the genre pittoresque, of the present lot are a slight variation of the print's design. Not only does the print not show the neck swags and garlands but also the lid lacks the wavier lines published and the putto is holding a small lamb. Interestingly, the conforming elements appear in reverse on the print which indicates that the maker of this precious objet was probably looking at a preparatory drawing of this same engraving.  It was common for Boucher to do a number of drawings on the same object he was designing, and one can only presume that one or more lost drawings existed, serving as models for the mounts on this ewer. 

The current work must be interpreted side by side with another example, the celebrated gold-mounted jasper ewer (fig.2), now part of the Museu Gulbenkian collection in Lisbon. Of the same size, they are designed with slight variations, namely the lid, the foot mounts and even on the garlands. The Gulbenkian example, in red-blood jasper and finely mounted in gold, was once part of the collections of the 12th Duke of Hamilton, and sold in his sale in 1882 to S.Wertheimer. It was subsequently with the Rothschild family until Calouste Gulbenkian acquired it from Henri de Rothschild in 1943. It carries the Maison de Commune marks for the period of 1734-5, which automactically indicate that the drawing on which the print was based were probably executed around 1730-34. 

Gold-mounted jasper ewer, Paris, circa 1734-35 (Courtesy Museu Gulbenkian, Lisbon)

The first published association of Boucher designs with the Gulbenkian ewer was done by Simon Ricci in 1911 (Catalogue of a Collection of Mounted Porcelain Belonging to E.M.Hodgkins), but recently Peter Fuhring, in his seminal catalogue on Juste-Auréle Meissonier, discussed it  and suggested a new attribution of the mounts to the Rococo genius on the basis that the putto design was closer to Meissonier's style than Boucher’s and also the close contact the two artists had through their common publisher Huquier. It is a debatable supposition and even Fuhring is not conclusive, stating that “Et si Boucher a dessiné l’enfant, et eventuellement aussi la monture, ce que nous ne pensons pas, il est plus que probable qu’il s’est inspiré du travail de son ami”. The style of the putto nevertheless is very much in line with Boucher’s and even the combination of the goat with putto can be seen in one of his prints, “Fête de Baccus”, published by Huquier. This Boucher connection might have been what attracted Baron Edmond de Rothschild towards this piece, who famously put together a huge collection of Boucher prints and drawings, later donated to the Musée du Louvre. 

Our attractive light brown jasper ewer, with its pear-shape, scalloped handle lower section and moulding to neck, follows a profile typical of prized receptacles  found in byzantine and medieval Treasuries. The Lisbon piece has traditionally been dated to the 14th century, however a study of the technique and patina of our ewer supports the idea that it was surely carved in the mid-18th century emulating the Gulbenkian’s gold-mounted example. The stone was carved in four pieces - neck, body, foot and handle - and presents a hole, to the interior. It was probably carved when conceived, in order to hollow it out, but the process was interrupted, as it was leading to cracks. These are noticeable in the body and at the time were filled with red paste, as confirmed by expert analysis, also explaining the flat gilt bronze cover, instead of a border rim, under the cover. 

It is conceivable that the owner of the red jasper ewer, proud and aware of its uniqueness, ordered the piece studied here as a companion, in a comparable stone and mounted in gilt-bronze. Furthermore, one should also consider the possibility of amarchand-mercier, fascinated by the beauty of the gold-mounted piece already then celebrated by Boucher’s print, commissioning this remarkable work, probably a few years after the marked Lisbon example. 

The admiration and respect towards a medieval shape and the whimsical Rococo creativity of François Boucher converge beautifully in these outstanding objects, making the creation of these ewers even more exceptional and possibly without parallel in the 18th century French decorative arts. 

French School, Baron Edmond de Rothschild (1845-1934), c. 1900; oil on canvas; 540 x 450mm (sight size); Waddesdon, The Rothschild Collection (Rothschild Family Trust) On loan since 1995; acc. No. 11658.1995© The National Trust, Waddesdon Manor

Baron Edmond de Rothschild
The sale of Mrs. Walters in 1941 states a provenance for the current ewer as Baron E. de Rothschild, which we assume refers to Baron Edmond (1845-1934), although his cousin Edouard (1868-1949) was also alive during a similar period. Born into a dynasty of financiers and collectors, Baron Edmond de Rothschild continued his family’s passion for art and at the age of 13 was already collecting engravings, forming one of the most important collections of engravings and drawings in France. He was also friend of artists and generous benefactor to numerous art institutions, being elected member of the French Academy of Fine Arts in 1906.

He was also a prolific benefactor to scientific causes, establishing a foundation for scientific research bearing his name in 1921 and one of the leading supporters of Zionism, buying extensive areas of land and financing Jewish settlements in Palestine. When he passed away he left, among other works, 3,000 drawings and 43,000 prints to the Louvre, and an impressive collection of boxes and miniatures to his son James, now at Waddesdon Manor. 

Mrs. Henry Walters
Sarah Wharton Green was born in 1859 into a prominent family of New England and North Carolina, growing up on her father’s plantation, “Esmeralda”, and enduring some difficult times during American Civil War. Sarah married the financier Pembroke Jones in 1884 with whom she had two children, Pembroke and Sarah, the former marrying the renowned architect John Russell Pope. Sarah and Pembroke Jones moved to New York where they managed to break into the closed upper echelons of New York society, entertaining lavishly and building an extensive art collection. Pembroke died in 1919 and three years later, Sarah married their lifelong friend Henry Walters, a railway magnate and art collector, who famously left his large collection to the city of Baltimore – now the Walters Art Gallery - when he died in 1931. Mrs. Walters lived for another ten years, selling her own collection with Parke-Bernet in 1941, which consisted mostly of 18th century furniture, statuary and tapestries, totalling then $600,000.

Georges Lurcy
Georges Lurcy (1891-1953), née Levy, was a French banker born in Paris in 1891, who worked with Banque Rothschild and became extremely successful dealing in securities. He fought in World War I and afterwards acquired the château of Meslay-le-Vidame where he stored his art acquisitions.

With the dawn of World War II, he changed his name and his American wife quickly convinced him to emigrate to America. The couple established themselves in North Carolina and New York, continuing their passion for collecting. Georges Lurcy passed away in 1953 and Parke-Bernet organized a historical three day sale, with many masterworks by Impressionist and Post-Impressionist painters and also important 18th century decorative arts, with the proceeds of the sale going to the establishment of a trust promoting the friendship between the American and French people. 

Sotheby's. Treasures, 08 juillet 2015 | 5:30 PM BST - Londres

A German parcel-gilt silver equestrian figure of St. George, most probably Melchior Gelb I, Augsburg, circa 1640. Estimate 150,000 — 250,000  GBP. Lot. Sold 161,000 GBP. Photo Sotheby's.

the detachable figure on a rearing horse and domed base chased to simulate a rocky forest floor, corrugated rim, marked on base; 23cm., 9in. high overall, 16cm., 6 1/4 in. long; 734gr., 23oz. 11dwt.

Provenance: Galerie J. Kugel, Paris
Yves Saint Laurent, Paris
Collection Yves Saint Laurent et Pierre Bergé, Christie's, Le Grand Palais, Paris, 24 February 2009, lot 195

Bibliography: V. Laloux et P. Cruysmans, Le bestiaire des orfèvres, l’oeil du hibou, Lausanne, 1994, illus. p. 231

Note: This striking sculpture was probably made as a dining table ornament, like the mounted equestrian drinking cups with detachable heads, which it resembles. A group of three such silver table sculptures representing Hercules, Omphale and Venus by Abraham II Drentwett, Augsburg, 1695-1700, are in the Hessisches Landesmuseum.1 These may have been part of a larger group, as the figure of Diana the Huntress by the same maker, in the same style was sold Christie's, Geneva, 18 November 1981, lot 192.

The figure in the present group is intently studying the ground for his prey, where a separate sculpture of the dragon, enemy of the Christian knight, could be imagined. An Augsburg ewer of 1654 in the form of an equestrian group, with the horse similarly jumping, not over a dragon but over a fallen Turkish warrior, was formerly in the collection of the Princes Esterházy von Galantha. It represents László Esterházy who died fighting the Turks at the battle of Nagyvezekény in 1652.2

Melchior Gelb, Lancier à cheval, Augsburg, circa 1640, in V. Laloux and P. Cruysmans, Le bestiaire des orfèvres, l’oeil du hibou, Lausanne, 1994, illustr. p. 231. © Private collection

Melchior Gelb (1581-1654) was a precocious talent, co-working in 1605 with his later father-in-law on chased silver panels of the Crucifixion and the Descent from the Cross after the Italian sculptor Guglielmo della Porta (c. 1500-1577). He signed his work as journeyman for Pfelger long before he became a master of the Guild in 1616. One of these panels is in the Victoria and Albert Museum. His ability as a sculptor is evident in the surviving work which includes an Alpine Ibex (steinbock) drinking cup, very unusual tankards in the form of busts of young women with curled hair and necklaces and human figures worked into elaborate fountains for the drinking games which were then so popular.3

Coat-of-arms

1. Exhibition catalogue, Silver und Gold, Augsburger Goldschmiedekunst für die Höfe Europas, Munich, 1994, no. 46

2. The horse and rider, Sold Sotheby’s, Geneva, 8 May 1989, lots 173 and 174. A photograph of 1930 reproduced in the catalogue shows the complete figure of horse, rider, fallen Turk and base.

3. Helmut Seling, Die Augsburger Gold-und Silberschmiede 1529-1868, Munich, 2007, no. 1305

A German renaissance gilt-copper and gilt-brass 'reiter uhr' automaton table clock, Nikolaus Schmidt, Augsburg, circa 1580. Estimate 180,000 — 250,000  GBP. Unsold. Photo Sotheby's.

the two train fuse and chain movement with pinned barrel caps, oval brass plates stamped NS for Nikolaus Schmidt, plain steel pillars, verge and plain brass balance escapement with later hairspring and regulator, locking plate striking on a bell, the richly gilded case surmounted by an elegantly dressed figure astride his horse, the figure moving his head from side to side as the clock strikes, the repoussé gilt-copper base decorated on the upper side with building and creatures and engraved with hours dial and strike recording dial, the moulded lower section decorated with leaves and strapwork, the damascened iron underside with gilt bun feet: 29cm. 11½in. high

Provenance: Time Museum, Rockford, Illinois, Inventory No. 557.
Sotheby's New York, Masterpieces from the Time Museum, 19th June 2002, Lot 203
Private European Collection

Bibliography: Maurice, Klaus & Mayr, Otto, eds., The Clockwork Universe, German Clocks & Automata, 1550-1650,Washington D.C., 1980, Fig.73.

Note: Nikolaus Schmidt was born in Wiltz, Luxembourg around 1550 and became a Master at Augsburg in 1576.

The art of clock making developed rapidly in Europe during the 16th century. Clockmakers looked for ever more innovative ways to incorporate entertainment as well as information into their clocks and the dawn of the spring-driven domestic clock enabled the power of the spring to be utilised in creating portable novelty automaton clocks. Augsburg became a centre of manufacture for such pieces and, as a city renowned for its fine metalworking, the case designs became evermore fanciful. Animals were popular representations with lions, camels, elephants and eagles all featuring strongly. However, models featuring horses and riders, "reiter uhren", are particularly rare with Klaus Maurice stating that only three other similar examples are known.

A very similar clock was sold Christies, Amsterdam, 19th December 2007 for €264,000
A German renaissance automaton Unicorn clock was sold in these rooms, Treasures, 9th July 2014 for £722,500.

Sotheby's. Treasures, 08 juillet 2015 | 5:30 PM BST - Londres

French, late 18th century, After a model attributed to Antoine Coysevox, Pacing horse. Estimate 200,000 — 300,000  GBP. Lot sold 245,000 GBP. Photo Sotheby's.

bronze; 83 by 87 by 31cm., 32 5/8  by 34¼ by 12¼in.

Provenance: probably Joseph Depestre, Count of Seneffe and Turnhout, Château de Seneffe, Hainaut, Belgium, by 1791;
thence by descent to his heirs;
probably their sale, 24 October to 17 November 1825;
probably Viscount Mathieu Denis Claire Talon, Marquis of Boulay, until 1853;
by descent to Denis Gabriel Victor Talon and Marquise Carolina Sampieri, Villa Talon, Bologna, circa 1853;
and thence by family descent

Bibliography: onds famille Depestre de Seneffe, 613, fol. 9, Archives de l’État, Mons, 1791;
Petites archives de familles [manuscript], 336 (Famille Daminet), 1, Archives de l’État, Mons, early 19thcentury;
Archivio Talon-Sampieri [manuscript], B290, 6, Bologna, 1825 
X. Duquenne, Le château de Seneffe, Brussels, 1978, p. 181, n. 818, p. 182, n. 825, and p. 186 

Note: As few as four versions of the present horse survive, of which only two measure an extraordinary 89 by 83 centimetres. The spectacular size of the present bronze as well as the rounded Baroque elegance and movement of the model have rightly led art historians to associate the model with a long-lost equestrian monument to Louis XIV that towered over the city of Rennes before the Revolution. Both this bronze and the other large version were once in the possession of the noble Talon-Sampieri family of Italy and were probably inherited from their Belgian ancestor Joseph Depestre, the Count of Seneffe and Turnhout. The high regard in which the model has been held is illustrated by Depestre’s early inventories and estate sale catalogue: “Un Cheval de Bronze, dit le fameux cheval de bronze. Cette piece est unique par toutes ces perfections et beauté.”

The model
This exceptional bronze horse closely parallels an important bronze equestrian monument of Louis XIV which stood in the Place de Parlement in Rennes and was commissioned from the court sculptor Antoine Coysevox on 9 June 1686 and finally erected in 1726. As was the case with so many effigies of the Sun King, the monument was slated for destruction during the Revolution and the bronze reused for the production of cannons. The only remaining vestiges of the original monument, now preserved in the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Rennes, are the two bronze bas-reliefs made for the pedestal of the statue. They depict the presentation of this project by Jules Hardouin-Mansart to the king (Souchal, op.cit, figs. 49a-b). The appearance of the entire monument, however, does survive through reproductions, such as the engravings by Simon Thomassin (fig.1) and Jean-Baptiste Biard and a gouache executed by Jean François Huguet, which is preserved in the Bibliothèque Municipale at Rennes (Martin, op.cit, p.122, fig.64.). 

Engraving by Thomassin 

The engravings of the monument show that Coysevox’s arrangement of the rear and front legs, a combination of a natural and formal gait, with only the edge of the proper left rear hoof touching the base, is precisely the same as in the present model. Similarly, one long, slightly curled, tress of the mane falls over the right shoulder, while the balance of the mane remains on the left side of the neck and shoulders. The bridle is also comparable, with the exception of the bit; here a simple bridle with a noseband was probably attached and secured by a chain on the outside of the mouth. In both cases the saddle cloth is rectangular with an undulating fringe and the thick wavy hair of the tail is not tied. Compare also the eye sockets, brow, and dilated nostrils as well as the anatomy and voluminous groups of muscles in the early bronze reductions of Fame and Mercury on horseback after the marbles Coysevox executed for the Tuileries in 1701-1702 (The French Bronze, op.cit., no. 41). The relation between the present model and another great lost equestrian statue, François Girardon’s destroyed monument for the Place Louis-le-Grand in Paris of which the design is handed down to us by numerous small scale replicas, has been much discussed in the literature but can probably be dismissed due to distinct differences, including several in both the mane and the tail. (see Seelig, op.cit., p. 211, n. 845) 

Charlé de Tyberchamps, Le Château de Seneffe, Bibliothèque Royale

As mentioned before, four versions of the present model exist. Aside from the present cast, a cast of the same size which was also part of the Talon-Sampieri collection was sold at Sotheby’s Monaco on 24-25 June 1984 (lot 3267), and appeared twice more at Sotheby’s New York on 5-6 December 1991 (lot 23) and 26 January 2007 (lot 284). Differences in their facture, including the use of screws to plug casting flaws and varying levels of afterwork, indicate that the latter version was cast in the years immediately following Coysevox’ design of the monument at the end of the 17th century whilst the present cast, which is cast according to the lost wax method, has mounts for a bridle, and has a large casting aperture underneath the separately cast saddlecloth, probably dates from the late 18th century. The dating of the older cast suggests the model may have come into being by casting the model of the horse for the equestrian monument in bronze. As such it may have functioned as a presentation piece for the King or Hardouin-Mansart or to capitalise on a highly original design for a trotting horse, which had been collector’s items since the early 16th century. Since the present bronze was cast around a century later, it is likely to have been made for a family member or second domicile of Joseph Depestre, Count of Seneffe and Turnhout. 

Vestier, Joseph Depestre, Comte de Seneffe et de Turnbout

The other two versions of the model are of a reduced size and incorporated in equestrian statuettes: one representing Augustus the Strong in the Grünes Gewölbe in Dresden and one with an unknown rider in the Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid. The smaller bronzes display several variations compared to the present bronze; in addition to bearing a rider, they include saddlecloths, a different arrangement of flowers and a raised support for one of the hooves on the terrasse, and a lower level of modelling of the manes at the top of the head but otherwise more elaborately chased detail. The Dresden bronze is significant because it is known to have been commissioned by Augustus the Strong’s agent and architect Raymond Le Plat and was delivered to the elector in 1715. This record provides a terminus ante quem for the model that fits well into Coysevox’ lifetime and indicates that the sculptor did indeed capitalise on his superlative design for Louis XVI’s equestrian monument by offering beautifully made reductions to other clients.  

Coat-of-arms

Antoine Coysevox (1640-1720) became apprenticed to Louis Lerambert after causing furore with a sculpture of the Virgin Mary at only seventeen years of age. At twenty-six he was appointed sculpteur du Roi and joined the army of artists decorating the Louvre. His young wife tragically died after only a few months of marriage causing Coysevox to escape Paris and continue his career in Strasbourg and Lyon, where he carried out major commissions for local noblemen and clergy. He was lured back to Paris by a teaching position at the Académie Royale, of which he would eventually become the rector in 1694, one of the great triumphs of sculpture in the history of art. Once re-established in Paris, Coysevox worked on sculpture for Louis XIV’s foremost projects, including the châteaux of Versailles, Trianon, Marly, Saint-Cloud, and Chantilly. He designed and sculpted the funerary monuments for Mazarin, Colbert, Hardouin-Mansard, Le Brun, and Le Nôtre, some of the greatest men of his time. In addition to numerous busts of the royal family and the destroyed equestrian monument to Louis XIV, Coysevox produced a monumental portrait of Louis XIV Standing for the courtyard of the Hôtel de Ville in Paris, which was hidden during the Revolution and is now in the courtyard of the Musée Carnavalet.  His bronze reductions of the classicalKneeling Venus and the aforementioned Mercury and Fame are amongst the most successful small bronzes from the reign of Louis XIV. 

The provenance
Owing to its provenance from the aristocratic Talon-Sampieri family of Bologna, the present bronze can be connected with a bronze documented in 1791 in the inventory of the Château de Seneffe near Nivelles in Belgium, which was then owned by Joseph Depestre, Count of Seneffe and Turnout (1757-1823). After the death of his parents, Depestre inherited the Château de Seneffe and embarked upon a campaign to enhance the decoration of the castle so that it would rival any residence in the Habsburg Low Countries. In order to do so the Count set out to acquire works of art in several of the major sales of his time, including those of Charles of Lorraine and the Marquise de Pompadour. From 1786 onwards Depestre spent most of his time in Paris, where he assembled a second magnificent collection, consisting of approximately one hundred paintings, which was acquired in its entirety for the Louvre. In addition to collecting painting and sculpture the nobleman amassed a group of scientific instruments, was a bibliophile, and an amateur physicist. As is evident from his interests, Depestre was a highly dynamic individual and forceful businessman. On more than one occasion he put his fortune on the line by speculating with commodities or investing in risky business ventures.  

According to Duquenne, a particularly bad stint during the final years of the Ancien Régime forced Depestre to make the 1791 inventory of the contents of the Château de Seneffe which first mentions the presence of a large bronze horse in the Grande Salle. (Duquenne, op.cit., p. 181 and Fonds Famille Depestre de Seneffe, op.cit.) The inventory sadly does not make clear if Depestre inherited or purchased the bronze, but it is likely to have been acquired in France. In the same year Depestre’s financial problems forced him to flee to Florence. He was declared an émigré and his properties in France and Belgium were confiscated. In an extraordinary coup, he managed to convince his brother Jean-Baptiste to acquire the house and its contents, who kept it in the family until the Count was able to reacquire it in 1802. He continued his collecting at this time as well, as is clear from a further set of inventories. They confirm that the bronze horse was still in the Grande Salle at this point and record the presence of the saddle cloth and the absence of a rider: “1 cheval de bronze de 2 pie 8 pous de hauteur Sur 2¼ d longeur et 11 pouces de largeur couvert d’une valtrasse” (see Petites archives de familles, op.cit.) 

n the following years Joseph Depestre had to sell his property to cover his debts twice more. In 1818 he sold the contents for the third time but died before he could reacquire the lot (Duquenne, op.cit., p. 182). The remaining contents of the Château de Seneffe were put up for auction by his heirs in October/ November 1825. There was clearly still a substantial group of furnishings at this point because the sale took place over a period of thirty-eight days. The bronze horse miraculously survived the Count’s financial mismanagement and was presented in the sale announcement in the Journal de Belgique as one of the most precious works of art in the house. (Duquenne, op.cit., p. 186) A poster announcing the sale found recently in the archives of the Talon-Sampieri family equally mentions “le magnifique cheval de bronze”  (op.cit.). The notarial document drafted on the occasion of the sale shows that most of the collections were acquired by two relatives of the deceased, his nephew Viscount Denis Claire Talon and the Chevalier de Knyff. (Duquenne, op.cit., p. 182) The Talon-Sampieri archives contain a document that substantiates Talon’s activity at the sale and proves that it was he that acquired a bronze horse from Château de Seneffe for 610 florins. Upon the death of the Viscount Talon in 1853 the bronze must have passed to his son, Denis Gabriel Victor Talon, who had married Carolina Sampieri and settled in Bologna in 1849. The present bronze remained in their descendants’ possession until recently. 

The fact that two old casts of Coysevox’ horse emerged from the Talon family collection in the last decades and only one is mentioned in the archival material outlined above suggests that one of the casts has a different provenance or was cast after the earlier version for the family and evaded the family records. If the former is true, the cast could have come into the possession of the family through later inheritance from the French Talon branch, which includes illustrious courtiers such as Omer Talon (1595-1652), advocate and procurator of the King in the French Parliament, Jean Talon (1625-1694), the first Intendant of New France, now Canada, and Antoine-Omer Talon (1760-1811), Lieutenant Chatelet of Louis XVI. Judging by his activity at his uncle’s estate sale, Viscount Mathieu Denis Claire Talon (1783-1853) was an avid collector, who may have been keen to possess both large casts of the horse. His son and his Italian wife and their descendants equally continued to add to their collection during the 19th century. 

RELATED LITERATURE
P. Quarré, ‘La statue equestre de Louis XIV sur la Place Royale’, Mémoires de la Commission des Antiquités du Department de la Côte d’Or, 25, 1959-1962, p. 92; P. Volk, ‘Darstellungen Ludwigs XIV. auf steigendem Pferd’, Wallraf-Richartz-Jahrbuch, XXVIII, 1966, p. 77; The French bronze 1500-1800, cat. M. Knoedler & Co., New York, 1968, no. 41; F. Souchal, French sculptors in the 17th and 18th centuries. The reign of Louis XIV, Oxford, 1977-1993, vol. I, pp. 198-199 and 210, vol IV, p. 57, no. 49; L. Seelig, Studien zu Martin van den Bogaert gen. Desjardins (1637-1694), Altendorf, 1980, p. 211, n. 845; M. Martin,Monuments équestres de Louis XIV, Paris, 1986, pp. 114-116, figs. 60 and 61; M. Raumschüssel, Barock in Dresden, exh. cat. Villa Hügel, Essen, Leipzig, 1986, p. 53, no. 1; A. Boström (ed.), ‘Coysevox’, The Encyclopedia of Sculpture, New York, 2004

Sotheby's. Treasures, 08 juillet 2015 | 5:30 PM BST - Londres

HERMES.  Sac "Birkin" 35 cm en crocodile d'estuaire couleur noir (Crocodylus porosus). Année: 2006. Estimation : 35 000 € / 40 000 €. Photo Artcurial.

A Black shiny crocodile 35 cm "Birkin" bag, silver palladium hardware, key fob and sheathed padlock, double handle. Year: 2006. 

I/B source R, garniture en métal argenté palladié, tirette, clochette, clefs, cadenas gainé, doublure en chèvre comprenant une poche à fermeture sur glissière, une poche plaquée, double poignée. 

L'utilisation commerciale de ce spécimen est libre dans l'UE. Néanmoins, pour cette vacation, un CITES de réexport et un CITES d'import ont été délivrés à la fois par les autorités française et monégasque pour l'utilisation commerciale de ce spécimen à Monte-Carlo. Le nouvel acquéreur de ce spécimen devra solliciter auprès des services administratifs compétents une nouvelle demande sous forme d'un CITES de réexport et d'un CITES d'import pour une sortie de l'UE. 

ARTCURIAL - BRIEST-POULAIN-F.TAJAN, MONTE-CARLO. Hermès Vintage, le 22 Juillet 2015 à 10h30 

HERMES. Sac "Birkin" 35 cm en crocodile d'estuaire couleur noir (Crocodylus porosus), Année: 2010. Estimation : 30 000 € / 35 000 €. Photo Artcurial.

A Black porosus crocodile 35 cm "Birkin" bag, silver palladium hardware, key fob and sheathed padlock, double handle. Year: 2010. 

II/B source C, garniture en métal argenté palladié, tirette, clochette, clefs, cadenas gainé, doublure en chèvre comprenant une poche à fermeture sur glissière, une poche plaquée, double poignée.  

L'utilisation commerciale de ce spécimen est libre dans l'UE. Néanmoins, pour cette vacation, un CITES de réexport et un CITES d'import ont été délivrés à la fois par les autorités française et monégasque pour l'utilisation commerciale de ce spécimen à Monte-Carlo. Le nouvel acquéreur de ce spécimen devra solliciter auprès des services administratifs compétents une nouvelle demande sous forme d'un CITES de réexport et d'un CITES d'import pour une sortie de l'UE. 

ARTCURIAL - BRIEST-POULAIN-F.TAJAN, MONTE-CARLO. Hermès Vintage, le 22 Juillet 2015 à 10h30

HERMES. Sac "Birkin" 35 cm en crocodile d'estuaire couleur Bleu Jean (Crocodylus porosus). Année: 1997. Estimation : 30 000 € / 35 000 €. Photo Artcurial.

HERMES. Blue Jean porosus crocodile "Birkin" 35 cm bag, gilt metal hardware, keyfob, sheathed padlock, double handle. Year: 1997. 

II/B source R, garniture en métal plaqué or, tirette, clochette, clefs, cadenas gainé, doublure en chèvre comprenant une poche à fermeture sur glissière, une poche plaquée, double poignée.  

L'utilisation commerciale de ce specimen est libre dans l'UE. Néanmoins, pour cette vacation, un CITES de réexport et un CITES d'import ont été délivrés à la fois par les autorités française et monégasque pour l'utilisation commerciale de ce specimen à Monte-Carlo. Le nouvel acquéreur de ce specimen devra solliciter auprès des services administratifs compétents une nouvelle demande sous forme d'un CITES de réexport et d'un CITES d'import pour une sortie de l'UE. 

ARTCURIAL - BRIEST-POULAIN-F.TAJAN, MONTE-CARLO. Hermès Vintage, le 22 Juillet 2015 à 10h30

HERMES. Sac "Birkin" 35 cm en crocodile d'estuaire Chocolat mat (Crocodylus porosus). Année: 2010. Estimation : 20 000 € / 25 000 €. Photo Artcurial.

HERMES. A Chocolat matt porosus crocodile "Birkin" 35 cm bag, silver palladium metal hardware, keyfob, sheathed padlock, brown goatskin leather lining including a slide fastener pocket, a patch pocket, double handle. Year: 2010. 

II/B source C, garniture en métal argenté palladié, tirette, clochette, clefs, cadenas gainé, doublure en chèvre comprenant une poche à fermeture sur glissière, une poche plaquée, double poignée.  

L'utilisation commerciale de ce specimen est libre dans l'UE. Néanmoins, pour cette vacation, un CITES de réexport et un CITES d'import ont été délivrés à la fois par les autorités française et monégasque pour l'utilisation commerciale de ce specimen à Monte-Carlo. Le nouvel acquéreur de ce specimen devra solliciter auprès des services administratifs compétents une nouvelle demande sous forme d'un CITES de réexport et d'un CITES d'import pour une sortie de l'UE. 

ARTCURIAL - BRIEST-POULAIN-F.TAJAN, MONTE-CARLO. Hermès Vintage, le 22 Juillet 2015 à 10h30

Italian, Trapani, late 17th century-early 18th century, Devotional plaque with the Virgin and Child. Estimation  20,000 — 30,000  GBP.  Lot. Vendu 40,000 GBP. Photo Sotheby's

the reverse mounted with a later gilt copper relief with the arms of the Dandini family of Rome inscribed: EAM OMINE LAETO; coral mounted on partially enamelled gilt copper; 42.5cm., 17 3/4 in.

Note: Trapani was a leading centre for the production of works of art in coral in the 17th and 18th centuries.  Due to its geographical position and its exploitation of its natural resources and the use of its extensive coral banks, which continued well into the 18th century, Trapani became one of the principal commercial ports in the Mediterranean.  This growth resulted in the expansion of a prosperous merchant class, who, together with the wealthy clergy, contributed to the development and growth of a high level of coral and goldsmith's work.  In 1628, the guild of the coral workers, the Arte dei Corallari, was established in Trapani and after the suppression of the insurrection there in 1672, the skilled coral workers were dispersed to other Mediterranean centres.

Coral was considered a very precious and rare commodity in the 16th century due to the difficulty in extracting it and around this time collectors were growing increasingly interested in the Natural Sciences. Coral was esteemed both for its colour and unusual texture and it was believed (as was the case in antiquity) to have the power to ward off the 'evil eye'. Coral was originally used as entire 'coral trees', usually mounted on a base. However, from the late 16th to the 18th century, sections of coral were used as decorative elements on works of art.

A related octagonal Trapani frame was sold in these rooms as part of the collection of Luigi Koelliker on 3 December 2008, lot 50.

RELATED LITERATURE
A. Dameu, L'Arte Trapanese del Corallo, Milan, 1964; Coralli, Talismani Sacri e Profani. Trapani, exh. cat. Museo Regionale, Pepoli, 1986, nos. 76 and 82; G.C. Ascione, Gloria del Corallo a Napoli dal XVI al XIX Secolo, Naples, 1991;  M. Concetta Di Natale, Il Corallo Trapanese nei secoli XVI e XVII, Brescia, 2002, pp. 56-57, no. 17

Sotheby's. Old Master Sculpture and Works of Art. 09 juillet 2015 | 2:30 PM BST - Londres

Italian, Trapani, early 18th century, Holy water stoop with a female saint, perhaps Mary Magdalen. Estimation  6,000 — 8,000 GBP.  Lot. Vendu 7,500 GBP. Photo Sotheby's

coral mounted on gilt copper; 26cm., 10 1/4 in.

Sotheby's. Old Master Sculpture and Works of Art. 09 juillet 2015 | 2:30 PM BST - Londres

Italian, Sicily, early 18th century, The vision of Saint Francis. Estimation  1,500 — 2,500 GBP.  Lot. Vendu 1,875 GBP. Photo Sotheby's

ivory, bone, coral, crushed glass on cork, and green thread, on a wood core; 17 by 20cm., 6 5/8  by 7 7/8 in.

Sotheby's. Old Master Sculpture and Works of Art. 09 juillet 2015 | 2:30 PM BST - Londres

South Italian, 19th century, Beachcombery rhinoceros surmounted by an armed devil. Estimation  15,000 — 20,000 GBP.  Lot. Unsold. Photo Sotheby's

coral, shell, gilt wood and lacquer mounted on a wood core, further incorporating glass, engraved copper, cold painted metal, a boar's tusk, tassels, rock crystal, metal thread, cloth, and a plaster cameo of Louis XVI in profile, all mounted using tinted gesso; 65 by 54.5 by 36.5cm., 25 5/8  by 21 3/8  by 14 3/8 in.

Note: A very similar rhinoceros consisting solely of coral and shells but also incorporating lace on the edge of the base was sold at Sotheby's Paris, 26 March 2014, lot 51.

Sotheby's. Old Master Sculpture and Works of Art. 09 juillet 2015 | 2:30 PM BST - Londres