This pair of vases demonstrates the French taste for blue john throughout the 19th century. Parisian marchands-merciers had been importing blue john, mined in Castleton, Derbyshire, as early as 1765, before even the celebrated English craftsman Matthew Boulton had begun to purchase and use large quantities of the mineral. From the late 18th century blue john was imported to France and mounted with French ormolu. The waisted body of the blue john on the present lot suggests that it was not only mined but also finished in England in the early 19th century. It is unclear whether the present lot was mounted at this date as the present French mounts date from the mid-19th century. The late 18th century model after which these mounts are cast continued to be much admired during the 19th century as demonstrated by a drawing of one such vase by Emmanuel Alfred Beurdeley, now in the Musée des Arts décoratifs, Paris (inv. CD/6499/54).