Pair of Early 19th C. French Ormolu Covered Vases, Signed Clodion

Description

An Extraordinary Pair of Early 1800's French Ormolu Covered Vases, in the style of CLAUDE MICHEL, Signed Clodion. After the original terracotta vase by Clodion in 1763. These ormolu vases represent an extraordinary confluence of painting and sculpture in 18th century French art. Not only are they an early and masterful work of sculpture by Clodion, one of the most important 18th century French sculptors, but it appears stylistically that the originals of these vases were owned by the painter François Boucher. And the artistic links between these two artists, represented by this style of vases, are astonishing. As these vases style, seem to have played a visual role in Boucher’s paintings and, in addition, figures from Boucher’s paintings can be clearly recognized on Clodion’s vase. François Boucher was, arguably, the most famous 18th century European painter. And the impact of Boucher’s work on 18th century art was colossal. The subject of these vases appears identical to one of a pair of terracotta vases by Clodion now in the Hermitage Museum - called ‘no.1’ by Poulet and Scherf. The possibility that this vase was owned by Boucher also means that it is one of Clodion’s earliest vase designs, or possibly even the original of this type. As Poulet illustrates, since this vase is possibly depicted in Boucher’s Vertumnus and Pomona of 1763, it predates Clodion’s marble vase in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, as that is dated 1766 (Poulet, 1989, p. 143). Clodion left for Rome in the fall of 1762 and it is not known whether Clodion executed Boucher’s vase before he left for Italy or after his arrival in Rome because, as Poulet notes, in order to have it represented in a painting that was submitted to the Salon of 1763, Boucher would have had to have owned Clodion’s vase by the summer of 1763 (Ibid.). Furthermore, Boucher’s design for a vase from the Goncourt collection has been dated to 1761/62, placing it probably earlier than Clodion could have produced the original terracotta vase of this subject (A. Priore, p. 24). Because, of course, there is always the possibility that Clodion was influenced by Boucher’s paintings and drawings and based his vase on them, rather than the other way around. This close connection between Clodion and Boucher is further strengthened by the fact that it was a two-way street and that Clodion was clearly influenced by the works of Boucher. The subject of this vase encapsulates much of what is so admired in the arts of 18th century France: it is technically dazzling, appearing fresh and effortlessly dashed off, as only the hand of a master could achieve, and it is a brilliantly original composition, so popular imitations were still in production two hundred years later. It is both beautiful and humorous, and draws on both Antiquity and contemporary French paintings for inspiration. But, most remarkable of all, is that these vases are an amalgam of painting and sculpture with both Clodion and Boucher giving credit to the other and, by doing so, elevating them both.

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