A Pair Of ‘Japonsime’ Gilt-Bronze-Mounted Powder-Blue Porcelain Vases, Mounted As Lamps. By Ferdinand Barbedienne, Paris.
Each with a square shaped body. The sides decorated with elephant head handles. The bases corned by elephant heads, each signed to the base. Fitted for electricity.
Each signed ‘F. BARBEDIENNE’
France, Circa 1870
15 in. (38 cm.) high, excluding fittings.
Height including fittings 66 cm / 26 inches
Acquired from Galerie Roxane Rodriguez, Paris.
Supplied by François-Joseph Graf.
These exquisite powder blue porcelain vases are mounted with precious gilt-bronze by the Parisian bronzier par excellence, Ferdinand Barbedienne. Especially appealing are the ‘tête d’éléphant’ gilt-bronze feet which are a motif of Barbedienne’s Japonisme creations and their design is credited to Édouard Lièvre (d.1886). Bejewelled and exotic elephant heads regularly appear in Lièvre’s designs, such as to a garniture de cheminée conceived by Lièvre in 1875 and on an aquarium of the same date, the latter, like the present vases, signed ‘Barbedienne’ (Connaissance des Arts, No. 228, ‘Edouard Lièvre’, Paris, 2004, pp. 28, 31 and 34).
Barbedienne, Ferdinand. Bronzes d’ art : F . Barbedienne et Achille Collas Catalogue des Bronzes d’art, Paris 1884.
Florence Rionnet, Les bronzes Barbedienne, l’oeuvre d’une dynastie de fondeurs: L’oeuvre d’une dynastie de fondeurs (1834-1954), Paris, 2016.
By appointment only.
