Object Description
Magnificent pair of large bronze mounted Royal Vienna Porcelain vases
Austrian, Late 19th Century
Height 120cm, diameter 37cm
Adorned with full length portraits of a variety of important highly and influential Greek statesmen, philosophers, thinkers and poets, these magnificent vases were made in a highly classicizing style by the Royal Porcelain manufactory of Vienna in the late nineteenth century.
Featuring a pair of friezes against a rich red porcelain ground, a rare feature of Vienna wares, they are encircled with images of important Greek vases such as (on one vase), Xenophon, Thucydides, Socrates, Phidias, Pericles, Plato and Aspasia on one, and (on the other) figures such as Sappho, Aristarchus, Eratosthenes, Theocritus, Aristotle and Solon. Each of these figures, legendary individuals from the Classical world, c.550-350, are shown above a small painted inscription of their names, in the round, in a beautiful painted Classical manner.
The vases are mounted on brass bases, which bear the name Carl Radler (for Josef Karl Radler, 1844-1917), and the bronze socles are inscribed on the upper rims, “Das goldene Zeitalter der griechischen Kultur geschichte n. Rahl” (translating to The Golden Age of Greek Cultural History). The vases are emblazoned with beautiful work in gilt across their bodies, and are signed, on the porcelain ‘Beer,’ for Wilhelm Amandus Beer, (German/Russian 1837-1907), and feature the beehive mark for Royal Vienna on their base. Magnificent decorative works, they represent the height of antique porcelain making in Vienna in the late 19th century.