Beschreibung:

THE DE ROTHSCHILD VASES: AN IMPORTANT PAIR OF CARVED IMPERIAL PORPHYRY VASES
FRENCH, 18TH/19TH CENTURY
Each in Egyptian porphyry with waisted neck flanked by dolphins, the gadrooned body embellished with a frieze carved with rinceaux and male masks, on a waisted socle and square plinth
53cm high, 34cm wide, bases 14.3cm square
Provenance:
Vase 1: Almost certainly the De Rothschild Collection, thence to an important Swiss collection, by repute, Alain Moatti possibly acquired from Galerie Camoin Demachy, Paris
Vase 2: The De Rothschild Collection, Exbury House, Hampshire
Literature:
P. Malgouyres et al., Porphyre: La Pierre Pourpre Des Ptolemées Aux Bonaparte, Paris, 2003
D. del Bufalo, Porphyry: Red Imperial Porphyry. Power and Religion, Turin, 2012
Quarried exclusively at Mons Porphyrites in the Eastern Desert of Egypt, Imperial porphyry has been prized since antiquity for its remarkable hardness and lustrous purple colour, which bears a close resemblance to that of a particularly expensive pigment developed by the Phoenicians, known today as Tyrian dye. Several literary sources from antiquity speak of Alexander the Great's partiality to this colour, of his custom of wearing purple robes and of decorating his palaces with porphyry. The heirs to his throne in Egypt, the Ptolemies, are said to have continued this tradition, but it is only with the Roman Emperors Nero and Vespasian, towards the end of the first century A.D., that the association of porphyry with secular and religious power became established in Western civilisation.
Rome, the seat of the Empire, is where centuries later ancient porphyry statues, slabs, columns and vessels were excavated, as a result of the Renaissance period's renewed interest in classical art and architecture. The potent symbolism of porphyry, with its strong imperial connotation, thus assumed an additional level of meaning, as an emblem of Renaissance courts' erudition, fascination with antiquity and aspiration to parallel ancient Rome's splendour.
By the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, porphyry was avidly collected by powerful figures such as the Medici Grand Dukes of Tuscany, the French cardinals Richelieu (1585-1642) and Mazarin (1602-1661), and the 'Sun King' Louis XIV of France (1638-1715), who had a buying agent in Rome for his acquisitions. The interest in porphyry was such that it prompted artists to rediscover the art of carving it, a practice for which ancient Roman columns and other fragments were used, since Mons Porphyrites in Egypt had become inaccessible, a fact that further enhanced the rarity and value of works in this material.
The presence in Rome of influential figures such as Cardinal Richelieu introduced to Paris the taste for beautifully carved porphyry, which arguably culminated during the reign of the Sun King Louis XIV. In his residence at Versailles, the Gallery of Mirrors boasts to this day one of the most extraordinary collections of porphyry objects, comprising both vases and busts. Whilst no prototype has been identified for the design of the present pair of vases, the dolphin handles are emblematic of the Grand Dauphin (1661-1711), the son of Louis XIV. The zoomorphic handles follow in the tradition of Roman porphyry vases of the 17th century, such as the vase carved by Giovanni Battista Pozzi around 1684, now in the Wallace Collection (inv. F362). Another single porphyry vase, featuring a lid surmounted by a dolphin, was recently sold by Sotheby's Paris (16 June 2020, lot 4, EUR 200,000 including buyer's premium).
These vases were almost certainly together as a pair whilst owned by the De Rothschild family in the 19th/20th century, whereafter they were separated, one remaining in the Rothschild collection until the 21st century, whilst the other found its way to an Important Private collection in Switzerland. After purchasing the vases separately, the vases have now been reunited, after decades apart, by Tomasso.
Two further pairs of nearly identical form have been auctioned in the twentieth century at Christie's New York (26 October 1994, lot 108) and at Sotheby's Monaco (14 June 1997, lot 125).