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3089
Pair of malachite vases in the style of French Early Classicism
Probably France or Russia mid
Square base, short, tapered shaft with bundled laurel wreath, ovoid body supported by a star-shaped fanned out flower cluster, lateral handles in the shape of ram heads, connected with flower festoons, dome-shaped lid on circumferential cavetto, crowned by pine cones. Inscribed «L Haunz» under the bottom.
H 42,5,
Ram's heads, pine cones, floral garlands and bows are part of the cheerfully playful ornamental vocabulary of French Classicism on the eve of the Revolution, based on antique models, as encountered in refined works of interior art realised for Queen Marie-Antoinette (1755 - 1793), for example on the walls of the Turkish boudoir in the château of Fontainebleau or in the queen's dairy in the garden of Rambouillet. Under the influence of the nostalgic personality cult around the notorious Queen of Misfortune, celebrated by the elegance-minded Empress of the French Eugénie (1826 - 1920) from 1852 onwards, the Louis XVI style was given a new lease of life throughout Europe. At the same time, the bright green-grained malachite was being mined in large quantities in the Urals near Ekaterinburg and found excessive use in the representative rooms of the Tsar's court, such as the Malachite Room of the Winter Palace, or as lavish column cladding in St Petersburg's St Isaac's Cathedral. In the form of vases, bowls or mantelpieces, malachite was sent by the tsar's house as a diplomatic gift to all the courts of Europe, as evidenced, for example, by the malachite rooms in the Orangerie Palace in Potsdam or the Grand Trianon in Versailles. It is in this synergetic field of tension between Russian malachite mania and the revival of French royal styles during the Second Empire that this imposing pair of vases can be located.
Condition report