A PAIR OF narrow-necked baluster porcelain vases, overdecora - Lot 190

A PAIR OF narrow-necked baluster porcelain vases, overdecorated with a geometric mesh on a pale yellow ground imitating Chinese cracked celadon and two scalloped bands in relief in capuchin color. Side grips in the shape of horned Oni masks, one ring in the mouth. Rich neoclassical frame in chased and gilded bronze: the integral lid is crowned with a pinecone and adorned with fretworked reserves, rosettes and rais de cœur. The right-angled handles are decorated with draperies, acanthus leaves and laurel scrolls. Round base with interlacing frieze. 19th century ? H. 41 cm PROVENANCE: castle in Eastern France, family heirloom since the 19th century. This pair of mounted vases is stylistically comparable to a set of identically shaped vases overdecorated in Europe with two types of decoration (craquelé or caillouté) and adorned with four different models of gilded bronze mounts: - a pair in the Château de Chantilly, acquired by the Duc d'Aumale around 1860-1870 (same model) ; - a pair (with pebbled decoration) in the Musée Nissim de Camondo from the Erich Goldsmidt-Rothschild sale, March 25, 1931, no. 204 (previously Doucet sale, June 8, 1912, no. 216); - a pair from the former Lehmann collection (Paris, 1925, n° 232) then Guiraud was in the Galerie Fabre (P. Devinoy and G. Janneau, Le meuble léger en France, Paris 1952, fig. 52) (with snake handles); - a pair, Galliéra sale, Murat estate, March 2, 1961, no. 72 (with leafy sinuous handles); - a pair, Jules Strauss collection, March 7, 1961 (with leafy handles and faun mascarons); - a single vase, Paris, October 13, 1997, then Galerie Perrin (P. Kjellberg, Objets montés, Paris 2000, p. 136) (same model) ; - a pair, Sotheby's Monaco, December 11, 1999, no. 102 (same model) - a single vase, Paris, Maigret, December 2, 2011, no. 122 (same model) ; - a pair, Paris, Aguttes, June 11, 2012, no. 102 (same model). Sometimes presented as Chinese porcelain (Goldsmidt, Strauss, Murat collection, Sotheby's 1999), sometimes as Chantilly soft-paste porcelain (Doucet 1912, Musée Camondo, 1998 catalog no. 612, Galerie Perrin), the origin is uncertain. One art historian even thought he recognized the Camondo vases as those described in 1764 in the after-death inventory of the Marquise de Pompadour (no. 239) in the grand salon of the Hôtel d'Evreux (now the Elysée Palace). The author of this inventory, porcelain specialist Pierre Rémy, had not identified it. The crackled or pebbled European overdecor on a pale yellow ground is French and, by analogy with a Mennecy porcelain "cabaret" in the Musée de Sèvres, it has been suggested that all the vases were decorated simultaneously in the 1760s, either in Mennecy or by a decorator from this factory. Many uncertainties remain to be resolved before the definitive history of these beautiful vases can be written.