Each in the shape of a square temple, one with applied caryatids, garlands of flowers and winged cherubs on a blue ground, the other with applied figures of Neptune, caryatids, busts, dolphins and tritons on a blue ground, the base of the first with printed labels inscribed ‘P. 48 /E. de R./68’ for Édouard de Rothschild and ‘Einsatzstab R nr. 4151’; the base of the second with printed labels inscribed ‘P. 48 /E. de R./69’ for Édouard de Rothschild and ‘Einsatzstab R nr. 4152’
7¹⁄₈ in. and 6⁵⁄₈ in. (18.2 cm and 16.7 cm.) high; 4⁷⁄₈ in. (12.5 cm.) wide

Possibly from the collection of Monsieur Léon Dufourny (1754-1818); Paris, Me Petit-Cuenot, 16 November 1819, lot 374, then possibly collection of Monsieur Préaux (the caryatid example).
Possibly Frédéric Spitzer collection (1815-1890); Paris, Me Paul Chevalier, 17 April-16 June 1893, lot 592 (the Neptune example).
Baron Alphonse de Rothschild (1827-1905).
Baron Édouard de Rothschild (1868-1949).
Confiscated from the above by the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg following the Nazi occupation of France in May 1940 (ERR no. R 4301).
Recovered by the Monuments Fine Arts and Archives Section from the Altaussee salt mines, Austria (no. 1006), and transferred to the Munich Central Collecting Point, 27 June 1945 (MCCP no. 1207).
Returned to France on 2 March 1946 and restituted to the Rothschild family.
By descent to the present owners,

Possibly the one illustrated in J. Marryat, A History of Pottery and Porcelain, Mediaval and Modern, 1857, fig. 47, p. 99 in the collection of Mr. Préaux (the caryatid example).
Paris, Palais de l’Industrie, Union Centrale des Beaux-Arts Appliqués à l’Industrie, Musée Rétrospectif, 1865, no. 835.
Franck, L’ Art ancien, photographies des collections célèbres, Paris, 1868, Vol. IV.
Collection de Mr. Le baron Alphonse de Rothschild, circa 1890, (n.d.), vol. II, pl. 32.
Germaine de Rothschild, Serge Grandjean, Bernard Palissy et son école, Paris, 1952, pl. 35, no. XXXIV (the Neptune example).

Paris, Palais de l’Industrie, Union Centrale des Beaux-Arts Appliqués à l’Industrie, Musée Rétrospectif, 1865, no. 835.

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Lot Essay

A salt-cellar with caryatids, perhaps this example, is perfectly described in the auction of the collection of Mr Léon Dufourny (1754-1818) in Paris on 16 November 1819. He was a Membre de l’Académie royal des Beaux-Arts, curator at the Museum central des Arts (later Musée du Louvre) and Professeur à l’Ecole d’Architecture. In the 1819 auction catalogue, the salt-cellar is described: "Piedestal, dont quatre des faces representant chacune un fronton brisé, soutenu par un satyre et par une femme, terminés en gaine et unis ensemble par une guirlande de fleurs; au centre de cette espèce de portique est figurée une tête de Méduse. La partie supérieure du même objet forme un cratère entouré d’une arabesque et de quatre têtes de chérubins, Hauteur: 17 cm, largeur: 12 ½ cm".

A similar salt-cellar with caryatids was formerly in the collection of comte Basilewsky, illustrated by Alexandre Sauzay, Henri Delange, Carle Delange and C. Borneman, Monographie de l'oeuvre de Bernard Palissy suivie d'un choix de ses continuateurs ou imitateurs, Paris, 1862. It is now in the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg.

A salt-cellar with Neptune is illustrated in the catalogue of the Spitzer collection sold in 1893 for 7,000 francs (Frédéric Spitzer collection (1815-1890), his sale; Paris, Me Paul Chevalier, 17 April-16 June 1893, lot 634).