CIRCA 1790, ATTRIBUTED TO PIERRE-PHILIPPE THOMIRE

A remarkable illustration of the unrelenting fashion among distinguished Parisian collectors and amateurs for objets montés in the 1780s, this large and impressive 'Athenienne' pot-pourri was almost certainly executed by Pierre-Philippe Thomire, the most celebrated bronzier of the neoclassical period. The materials employed, the ambitious design and the unparalleled execution, all typify the celebrated bronzier's continued quest for innovative creations.

This lot relates closely to a pair of pot-pourri cassolettes currently preserved in the Louvres (OA5505). With almost identical female figures sitting on the Sevres bowl, and closely related griffins to the tri-partite plinth the present lot is almost certainly of the same manufacture as the Louvre examples, also attributed to Thomire and placed in the Napoleon III period in the bedroom of Empress Eugenie at the Palais des Tuileries. The same female musician figures appear on a vase attributed to Thomire and delivered by Dominique Daguerre and Martin-Eloi Lignereux for Madame du Barry in 1792, currently preserved in the Louvre (OA 6620).

Objets montés rapidly became au goût du jour both in France and with Russian and English aristocrats in the late 18th Century and enjoyed lasting popularity. Among the keenest collectors and amateurs were Madame du Barry, who purchased two vases beau bleu montés en bronze for 1,000 livres each, Marie-Antoinette, who acquired an ormolu-mounted jasper tazza by the bronzier Pierre Gouthière for her boudoir circa 1774-75, now in the Wallace Collection, London (F292), and Maria Feodorovna who in 1799 acquired a related garniture for the State Bedroom at Mikhailovsky Castle (Christie's, New York, 31 October 1996, lot 437).