A pair of Louis XV gilt-bronze mounted Chinese crackle-glazed porcelain cache-pots, the mounts circa 1750, the porcelain 17th/18th century

Bernard Steinitz, Paris, sold as from the collection of King Louis XVI at the Palais des Tuileries;

Acquired from the above by Prince Fahad bin Sultan bin Abdulaziz Al Saud (b. 1950) for his yacht 'Sarafsa';

Sold Eddisons, Scunthorpe, Luxury Silverware, Tableware and Artwork Recovered from a Super Yacht, 18th June 2025, lot 1595, where acquired by the present owner.

The aesthetics of this charming pair of cache-pots are a continuation of the most beautifully mounted porcelain pieces imagined by marchand-merciers during the middle of the 18th century.

The design of the Louis XV gilt-bronze rocaille mounts, continually asymmetrical, yet with symmetry to the details, recalls the most beautiful achievements by bronziers like Duplessis, whose production particularly excelled between 1750 and 1760. It is moreover to this bronzier that we can probably credit authorship of the much admired bronzes on the series of three craquelure celadon porcelain pieces - a pair of ewers and a vase (inv. nr. OA6053) in the Musée du Louvre, and another pair of celadon ewers with an identically designed bronze handle, formerly in the collection of the Comtesse de Béhague and illustrated in an article devoted to her in the March 1988 issue of L’Objet d'Art. 

A pair of similar bowls and covers (overall 13.5cm high) were sold from the collection of Baroness Renée de Becker and subsequently in the collection of Jayne Wrightsman at Christie's, New York, 14th October 2020, lot 49. A pair of similar size but of cylindrical form and decorated with flowers was sold at Sotheby's, London, 28th April 2016, lot 329. Finally, a bowl of the same shape but of larger size is in the collection of the J. Paul Getty Museum (inv. nr. 72.DI.42).

The taste for 18th century mounted porcelain

The practice of mounting porcelain from the Far East with metal was established in Europe at least by the end of the 14th century. Asian porcelain was considered exotic and rare; and like other precious objects, such as those made from semi-precious stones, rock crystal or porphyry, the use of mounts in silver, silver gilt and occasionally gold signified the important status of Chinese porcelain. The use of rich materials for mounting amplified the preciousness of the object it framed. On a purely practical level, the addition of metal mounts provided protection for the fragile porcelain body. Around 1700, treasured porcelains were less frequently confined in cabinets of curiosities and emerged as decoration for entire rooms. In eighteenth-century France there were also more intimate and smaller rooms, and the importation of Chinese porcelain became more accessible. The taste for mounted porcelain was therefore exploited to its full by the Parisian marchand-merciers such as Lazare Duvaux (1703-1758) and Thomas-Joachim Hebert (1687-1773), supplying the nobility and wealthy in both France and the fashionable courts of Europe. In France, the most popular types of porcelain for mounting were at first the blue-and-white wares that were arriving in the late 17th century. By the 18th century, taste gradually changed and the celadons and other monochrome wares tended to be preferred for mounting.

Monochrome crackle porcelains such as this were inspired by the classic Kuan and Ko wares of the 12th century Song dynasty. The celadon glaze was applied over a black or dark grey body before the piece was fired in a reducing kiln. The numerous minute surface cracks were achieved by changes in the firing cycle, i.e. by varying the cooling rates of the porcelain body and the glaze, causing each to shrink at different rates. Although the effect was originally created by accident, craquelure was soon deliberately created for decorative effect. 

It is known that the transformation from pure, unadorned ceramic to the mounted European object was carried out through the agency of the ingenious Parisian dealers in luxury goods, the marchands-merciers whose role was to present collectors with something new, to work with bronze founders in the making of the mounts and to create a fashionable object. They created nothing themselves but employed other craftsmen including bronze casters and gilders to work on their ideas and their designs. The Livre-journal, or sales ledger, of the marchand-mercier Lazare Duvaux has survived and gives an extraordinary peek into the fashion for mounted porcelain. The ledger describes a wide variety of types of mounted porcelain and their prices, as well as the price of unmounted porcelain and the cost of the mounts.