Each round dome with biscuit laurel ribs and trellis, supporting an orb surmounted by an acorn finial, its sides with eight faux-marbre painted columns with lotus capitals supporting biscuit eagles holding fruiting festoons, the columns with laurel-molded arches, each interior vaulted and blue-painted, centering an athénienne tripod, all on a stepped round base atop a plinth foot reserved with an anthemion frieze
15 in. (38.1 cm.) high

Acquired from Ariane Dandois, Paris, September 2000.

Galerie Ariane Dandois, L'empire à travers l'Europe, 1800-1830, Paris, 2000, cat. no. 10.

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Lot Essay

Darte Frères was operated by Louis-Joseph and Jean-Francois Darte at the rue de la Roquette and a gallery in the Palais-Royale between 1804 and 1824. These diminutive temples likely formed part of a surtout de table, sitting atop a mirrored plateau alongside figures, columns and serving dishes for sweets and fruit, their gilt cupolas reflecting the light from surrounding candelabra. From the 17th century onward, formal table-centers in France and Italy frequently drew upon the model of public architecture, both fantastical and in direct reproduction of Classical ruins. These subjects would be sculpted in sugar or fabricated in sturdier materials of ormolu, ceramic and hardstone.

An example near-identical to the present models, but lacking the acorn finial and with a variant tripod, is illustrated in R. de Plinval de Guillebon, Porcelain of Paris 1770-1850, New York, 1972, p. 150, no. 109, and an example of the same form but with a gilt interior and taller plinth base is illustrated in R. de Plinval de Guillebon, Faïence et Porcelaine de Paris XVIIIe - XIXe Siècles, Dijon, 1995, pp. 348-349, no. 333. A variant of the present model, but with a differing cupola and a hexagonal plan with columns arranged in pairs, was sold at Christie's, New York, 24 October 2012, lot 229.