Famed cabinet-maker Henry Dasson (d. 1896) is recorded as having worked in Paris at 106, rue Vieille-du-Temple. In 1870 Dasson purchased the firm of the ébéniste Charles Winckelsen upon his death, and began producing an impressive range of pieces for the Paris Expositions from 1878 until 1895. Dasson specialized in reproducing a wide range of high quality furniture and objets d'art in the style of Louis XIV, XV and XVI, often directly copying known works of these periods.
The present lot extremely representative of Henry Dasson's oeuvre in both craftsmanship and design. A pastiche of late Louis XV and Louis XVI designs, floral swag mounts and athenienne form base is in keeping with the goût grec style of the 1760s, while the urn-form body most likely derives from a group of three Sèvres drawings for a vase à monter, dating from the early 1780s. Similarly, the mask-headed supports are reminiscent of the celebrated bronzier-ciseleur Pierre-Philippe Thomire (1751-1843), however closer inspection of the masks reveal that they are in fact modelled after the great late eighteenth sculptor Claude Michel, dit Clodion (1738-1814), whose figures were so ubiqutously copied throughout the nineteenth century (see C. Mestdagh, L'Ameublement d'art français 1850-1900, Paris, p. 232).