Pair of antique French Japonisme glazed ceramic and ormolu lamps
By Malpass, Louis Pierre (French, active 1870s)
£18,000
These beautiful vases, turned lamps, are wonderful examples of French Japanese style artworks, beautifully painted by a leading Belle Epoque ceramicist.
These exceptional wares are a pair of French, Japanese 'Japonisme' style vases, converted into lamps, in glazed ceramic adorned with ormolu mounts.
Made in the late nineteenth century French Belle Epoque, they most notably feature exquisite painted scenes to the front and reverse. The fronts bear likenesses of a Japanese man on one and a Japanese woman on the other, and the reverse bear wonderful painted images of trees, birds (ducks) and shrubbery, as well as flowers and insects such as butterflies.
The pieces also bear ormolu handles in elephant form, as well as an elegant base, neck, and frieze to the bases, cast with gadrooning and geometric patterns. The paintings are signed 'L. Malpass,' for Louis Pierre Malpass, an important ceramics painter of the late nineteenth century, active most notably in the 1870s. Exquisite artistic pieces, as well as wonderful decorative wares, they will make an outstanding and much enjoyed interior addition.