Pair of ormolu mounted marble vases after Gouthière

The vases stand on circular green marble bases, which are raised up on ormolu (gilt bronze) toupie feet. Each vase is supported on three legs, which are linked by a pierced stretcher, and terminate in hoof feet. In each, an ormolu serpent coils down in the space between the legs to eat a cluster of fruit, mounted onto the marble base. The ormolu legs’ scrolled tops are decorated with satyr head masks, with fruiting grape vine swags draped between them. The scolled leg tops are mounted with ormolu grape vine handles. Surmounting the ormolu supports are the bulbous marble vases, which feature fluted lower bodies and smooth necks. Their bodies are decorated with ormolu lower finials, and their mouths edged with an ormolu laurel leaf band and flared pierced gallery.

These vases are designed after a model by Pierre Gouthière, the famous chaser-gilder, active in France in the 18^th Century. Gouthière created beautiful objets d’art for important figures of pre-revolutionary France, including Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, and Louis XV’s mistress, Madam Du Barry. See Hugues, P., The Wallace Collection Catalogue of Furniture, vol. III (London, 1996), pp. 1340-1345, for an illustration and discussion of the original Gouthière model.