Pair of ormolu mounted marble cassolettes after Gouthière

The cassolettes stand on circular red marble bases, which are raised on ormolu toupie feet. Each cassolette is supported on three legs, which are linked by a pierced stretcher, and terminate in hoof feet. In each, an ormolu serpent coils up in the space between the legs to eat a cluster of fruit. The ormolu legs’ scrolled tops are decorated with berried volutes, with fruiting grape vine swags draped between them. Surmounting the ormolu supports are the bulbous marble cassolettes, which feature fluted lower bodies and smooth necks. Their mouths are edged with an ormolu laurel leaf band and flared pierced gallery.

These cassolettes are designed after a model by Pierre Gouthière, the famous chaser-gilder, active in France in the eighteenth 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.