LATE 18TH/FIRST HALF 19TH CENTURY

This lot was most likely conceived as a lavish souvenir for travelers taking part of the Grand Tour; an extended journey through the Italian peninsula that was de rigueur for any nobleman and scholar from north of the Alps interested in antiquities and the arts of ancient Rome in the eighteenth century. These travelers often purchased ancient artifacts, or works imitating them, as mementos of their journey and incorporated them into their personal collections once they had returned home. This tradition continued well into the 1800s and workshops all over Italy sustained themselves from this trade. The vase offered here is particularly large in size, is of high quality, and in form true to ancient models unearthed in the 1700s that were so popular at the time, suggesting that it was purchased by a wealthy traveler of significant means with solid knowledge of the antique world.